THE  -QXP'AND  'GOWN 


CHARLBS  -RBYNOIyDS  -BR-OWN 


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BY    THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

THE   MAIN   POINTS 

THE   STRANGE   WAYS   OF   GOD 

THE  SOCIAL  MESSAGE  OF  THE  MODERN 
PULPIT 

THE   YOUNG   MAN'S   AFFAIRS 

FAITH  AND   HEALTH 

THE   GOSPEL   OF   GOOD   HEALTH 


THE 


CAP  AND  GOWN 


BY 


CHARLES  REYNOLDS  BROWN 


^^   Of  THE 

UWIVERSITV 

Of 


THE    PILGRIM    PRESS 

NEW    YORK  BOSTON  CHICAGO 


GoPTRIGHT,   I  910 

By  Luther  H.  Gary 


Bmmi 


y 


THK  .  PLIMPTON  •  PKESS 

[  W  •  D  .  o] 
KORWOOD  .  MASS  •  U  •  8  •  A 


PREFACE 


THE  larger  part  of  the  material  in  this 
book  was  originally  used  in  a  num- 
ber of  addresses  given  in  various 
colleges  and  universities  reaching  from  Yale 
and  Cornell  in  the  East  to  Stanford  and  the 
University  of  California  in  the  West.  It  is 
here  offered  to  a  wider  circle  in  the  hope 
that  these  chapters  may  prove  suggestive 
to  college  students  and  to  those  who  are 
interested  in  having  them  make  the  best 
use  of  the  bewildering  array  of  opportuni- 
ities  awaiting  them  on  the  modern  campus. 
It  was  one  of  the  shrewdest  and  kindliest 
observers  of  student  life,  himself  a  long- 
time resident  of  Cambridge  and  a  genial 
friend  of  Harvard  men,  who  said:  "It  is  a 
never-failing  delight  to  behold  every  autumn 
the  hundreds  of  newcomers  who  then  throng 
our  streets,  boys  with  smooth,  unworn  faces, 
full  of  the  zest  of  their  own  being,  taking 


[v] 


05530 


PREFACE 


the  whole  world  as  having  been  made  for 
them,  as  indeed  it  was.  Their  visible  self- 
confidence  is  well  founded  and  has  the  facts 
on  its  side.  The  future  is  theirs  to  command, 
not  ours;  it  belongs  to  them  even  more  than 
they  think  it  does,  and  this  is  undoubtedly 
saying  a  good  deal." 

It  is  this  joyous  and  confident  company 
arrayed  or  about  to  be  arrayed  in  "cap  and 
gown"  which  the  writer  of  these  chapters 
would  fain  address.  The  academic  costume 
and  accent  may  speedily  be  replaced  by  the 
less  picturesque  garb  and  tone  of  the  work- 
a-day  world,  but  the  advantage  of  special 
training,  of  accurate  knowledge  and  of  the 
larger  outlook  upon  life  attainable  in  any 
well-equipped  university  will  give  to  the 
fortunate  possessors  of  all  this  a  significance 
for  the  life  of  the  nation  far  beyond  that 
belonging  to  an  equal  number  of  similarly 
endowed  but  untrained  men. 


VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE   FIRST   INNING        ....  3 

II.  ATHLETICS            23 

III.  THE   FRATERNITY   QUESTION   .        .  41 

IV.  THE  RELIGION  OF  A  COLLEGE  MAN  59 
V.  THE   CHOICE   OF   A    LIFE-WORK      .  75 

VI.  MORAL   VENTURES           ....  93 

VII.  THE   LAW   OF   RETURNS       .        .        .  107 

VIII.  THE  HIGHEST  FORM  OF  REWARD  127 

IX.  THE   USE   OF   THE   INCOMPLETE     .  145 

X.  FIGHTING   THE   STARS           .        .        .  169 

XI.  THE   POWER   OF   VISION      .        .        .  183 

XII.  THE   WAR   AGAINST   WAR            .        .  201 


Vll 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

Microsoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/capgown_OObrowrich 


I 

THE    FIRST    INNING 


I 

THE    FIRST    INNING 


THE  significance  of  the  first  year  in 
college  can  scarcely  be  overstated. 
The  first  man  called  to  the  bat  in 
some  great  intercollegiate  game  may  be  par- 
doned for  feeling  a  bit  nervous.  He  real- 
izes that  players  and  spectators  are  eagerly 
waiting  for  him  to  give  them  the  key-note 
of  the  contest  by  the  way  he  acquits  him- 
self. The  young  man  just  entering  college, 
if  he  senses  the  situation  accurately,  is  equally 
alive  to  the  importance  of  his  first  hits. 

It  is  a  time  when  freedom  and  responsi- 
bility come  in  new  and  larger  measure. 
College  men  as  a  rule  are  away  from  home. 
There  is  no  one  to  ask,  with  the  accent  of 
authority,  how  they  spend  their  evenings, 
who  their  intimates  are,  what  habits  they 
are  forming.  Studying  is  not  done  under 
the  immediate  eye  of  an   instructor  as  in 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


the  grammar-school  days.  The  young  man 
who  heretofore  has  felt  the  wholesome  re- 
straint of  well-ordered  family  life,  suddenly 
finds  himself  a  free  citizen  in  a  republic, 
and  this  larger  measure  of  liberty  involves 
risk.  The  freshman  may  decide  the  case 
against  himself  before  he  is  ever  permitted 
to  put  on  his  sophomore  hat.  The  way  is 
open  for  him  to  go  to  the  devil,  physically, 
intellectually,  socially,  morally,  if  he  chooses. 
The  way  is  open,  the  bars  are  down  and  as 
often  as  not  some  young  fool  is  just  starting 
and  beckoning  his  friends  to  "Come  along." 
The  bad  plays  in  the  first  inning  are  fre- 
quently so  numerous  and  so  serious  as  to 
mean  the  loss  of  the  game.  It  is  a  time  then 
to  summon  into  action  all  the  wisdom  and 
conscience  which  may  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  those  early  decisions. 

There  is  one  choice  not  strictly  of  the  first 
year,  but  so  intimately  connected  with  it 
that  I  speak  of  it  here  —  the  decision  as  to 
whether  or  not  one  shall  go  to  college.  "It 
will  take  four  of  the  best  years  of  my  life," 
the  young  man  says.  "While  I  am  reading 
books  and  attending  lectures,  playing  foot- 
ball,  and  practising  the  college    yell,  other 


[4 


THE    F  I  K  S  T     INNING 


young  men  will  be  learning  the  ways  of  the 
business  world;  they  will  be  actually  laying 
the  foundations  for  prosperous  careers.  Can 
I  afford  the  time?"  Furthermore,  does  it 
justify  the  expense?  On  an  average  it  costs 
each  student  somewhere  from  five  hundred 
to  a  thousand  dollars  a  year  in  all  first-class 
colleges,  though  the  state  universities  in 
the  West  cut  down  that  figure  by  remitting 
tuition  fees,  and  many  splendid  young  men 
take  the  course  on  much  less.  Is  it  worth 
what  it  costs? 

Every  young  man  who  can  compass  it 
by  any  reasonable  outlay  of  energy  and 
sacrifice  had  better  go  to  college  and  tay 
there  until  graduation  day.  There  is  a 
deal  of  education  to  be  gained  outside  of 
books  or  college  halls.  The  business  fife 
of  a  great  city  is  a  university  in  itself  with 
its  lectures  and  recitations,  its  examina- 
tions and  other  requirements.  Its  courses 
of  instruction  have  a  value  all  their  own  and 
its  exacting  demands  flunk  more  men  ten 
to  one  than  either  Harvard  or  Yale,  Stanford 
or  California.  In  this  "university  of  experi- 
ence" the  college  colors  are  "black  and 
blue,"  for  the  lessons  are  learned  by  hard 


[5] 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


knocks.  But  the  man  who  knows  his  full 
share  of  what  is  in  the  books  will  show  him- 
self more  competent  in  finding  his  way  about 
in  that  larger  school  of  experience.  "  System- 
atic training  counts  everywhere,  from  a 
prize  fight  up  to  being  a  bishop  or  a  bank 
president." 

It  is  true  that  many  men  have  won  high 
place  in  the  world's  life  without  college 
training,  Benjamin  Franklin,  Horace  Greeley, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  and  all  the  rest,  —  we 
know  the  list  by  heart.  But  it  did  not 
please  the  Lord  to  make  Lincolns  and  Frank- 
lins when  he  made  most  of  us.  A  little 
extra  schooling  which  those  men  might  get 
on  without,  in  our  case  will  not  come  amiss. 
Furthermore,  those  very  men  with  all  their 
unusual  ability  did  not  have  to  compete 
with  college  men  to  the  extent  that  you  will 
be  compelled  to  do.  College  men  in  ordi- 
nary life  were  scarce  then;  now  there  are 
three  under  every  log.  In  law  and  medi- 
cine, in  teaching  and  the  ministry,  in  the 
administration  of  large  business  enterprises 
and  in  the  world  of  political  life,  you  will 
have  to  meet  and  try  conclusions  with  men 
who  have  received  the  best  the  universities 


6 


THE     FIRST    INNING 


can  give.  It  will  be  to  your  interest,  there- 
fore, to  add  to  the  stock  of  ability  which 
the  Creator  has  given  you  all  the  training 
that  high  school,  college,  and  university 
can  yield.  To  neglect  carelessly  or  decline 
wilfully  such  opportunities  when  they  are 
offered,  becomes  a  wrong  committed  against 
yourself,  against  all  who  are  interested  in 
your  growth,  and  against  society  which  is 
entitled  to  the  most  competent  service  you 
can  render. 

When  you  have  actually  set  foot  upon 
the  campus  there  comes  the  choice  of  courses. 
The  modern  drift  toward  unlimited  elec- 
tives,  especially  in  the  first  two  years,  is  open 
to  serious  criticism.  The  tendency  is  to 
allow  each  student  to  study  only  what  he 
likes,  consulting  merely  his  own  interest 
and  preference.  Even  where  young  people 
have  reached  the  mature  age  of  nineteen  or 
twenty,  and  are  regularly  entered  freshmen 
or  sophomores,  it  is  just  possible  that  more 
wisdom  can  be  found  somewhere  as  to  what 
is  best  for  their  intellectual  growth  and 
training,  than  is  discoverable  in  their  own 
individual  preferences.  There  is  a  disposi- 
tion on  their  part  to  select  courses  of  two 


7] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWiN 


kinds,  those  in  which  they  are  already 
strong  or  those  which  are  supposed  to  be 
snaps. 

Moving  along  the  line  of  least  resistance 
is  not  the  royal  road  to  anything  worth 
while.  Insight,  grasp,  and  self-mastery  come 
rather  by  doing  hard  jobs.  Rolling  down 
hill  on  green  grass  does  not  develop  robust, 
enduring,  effective  manhood  as  does  climb- 
ing Shasta  or  Whitney  over  loose  rock  and 
rugged  snow-fields.  There  is  no  such  thing 
as  "painless  education"  in  the  market. 

In  the  judgment  of  many  there  is  peril 
in  the  fact  that  at  one  end  of  our  educational 
system  we  have  the  kindergarten,  bowing 
with  almost  idolatrous  reverence  before  the 
untaught  inclinations  of  the  child  in  its 
effort  to  make  the  work  of  education  as 
enjoyable  as  a  game,  and  at  the  other  end 
the  university  with  its  wide-open  elective 
system  tending  to  breed  distaste  for  hard 
courses  or  for  studies  in  which  the  young 
people  do  not  already  feel  a  warm  interest. 
We  shall  not  rear  up  sturdy  character  by  too 
much  humoring  of  individual  taste,  which 
is  often  abnormal  in  intellectual  as  in  other 
directions.     Mr.  Dooley  indicates  a   weak- 


THE     FIRST    INNING 


ness  in  the  present  method  where  he  says: 
"To-day  the  college  president  takes  the 
young  man  into  a  Turkish  room  and  gives 
him  a  cigarette,  and  says,  *Now,  my  dear 
boy,  what  special  branch  of  larnin'  would  ye 
like  to  have  studied  for  ye,  by  one  of  our 
compitint  professors?'" 

In  the  selection  of  courses  it  is  unwise  to 
ignore  completely  certain  fields  because  you 
feel  you  are  weak  on  that  side  —  you  may 
need  rounding  out.  The  man  who  sits  in 
the  seat  of  the  scornful,  displaying  a  con- 
temptuous indifference  toward  fields  which 
lie  aside  from  his  personal  preference,  may 
live  to  find  that  narrow  seat  as  uncomfort- 
able as  a  sharp  stick.  It  is  well  not  to 
specialize  too  soon,  or  too  rigidly.  We  are 
com^pelled  to  specialize  at  last  in  order  to 
forge  ahead,  but  it  is  more  important  to  be 
a  man,  round,  full,  rich  in  contents,  than  to 
be  an  expert  lawyer,  physician,  or  mining 
engineer.  The  early  and  rigid  specializa- 
tion, sometimes  extending  even  down  into 
the  high  school,  tends  to  sacrifice  the  man  to 
the  profession. 

There  are  certain  fundamental  interests 
which  cannot  be  left  out  of  the  consideration 


9 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


of  any  educated  man  or  woman.  Take  these 
five  main  fields:  every  student  should  know 
something  of  language,  the  instrument  of 
communication.  He  should  for  the  pur- 
poses of  comparison  and  enlargement  know 
something  of  two  or  three  languages.  His 
knowledge  should  extend  beyond  the  mere 
ability  to  read  and  write  and  spell  —  it 
ought  to  include  some  acquaintance  with 
the  best  literature  of  each  language,  the  wid- 
est acquaintance  naturally  with  the  best  that 
has  been  thought  and  said  in  his  own  tongue. 

He  should  know  something  of  history. 
There  is  too  much  of  it  for  any  one  man  to 
master  it  all,  but  he  should  have  some  genu- 
ine understanding  of  the  chief  sources  of 
history,  and  of  the  main  courses  and  move- 
ments of  thought  and  life  in  the  world. 
He  should  enlarge  his  own  brief  and  local 
experience  by  some  participation  in  age- 
long, national,  and  international  experience. 

He  should  know  something  of  science. 
The  general  method  of  science  is  the  same, 
whether  observed  in  chemistry,  zoology, 
botany,  or  elsewhere.  One  may  never  be  a 
specialist  in  any  single  science,  yet  he  may 
know  the  scientific  habit  of  mind  and  appre- 


10] 


THE     FIRST     INNING 


date  the  fundamental  positions  of  science 
sufficiently  to  make  him  a  more  effective 
worker  in  his  own  chosen  field,  which  may, 
indeed,  lie  quite  over  the  divide  from  any 
directly  scientific  pursuit. 

He  should  know  something  of  the  organ- 
ized life  of  men  through  the  study  of  sociol- 
ogy, economics,  and  civics.  He  should  have 
some  understanding  of  institutional  life  in 
its  various  industrial,  political,  and  eccle- 
siastical expressions. 

He  should  feel  in  some  measure  the  power 
of  that  group  of  studies  which  have  to  do 
with  mental  and  moral  processes  consid- 
ered apart  from  the  world  of  outward 
phenomena,  psychology,  ethics,  philosophy, 
religion.  He  needs  to  relate  his  individual 
activity  to  the  larger  life  of  the  whole  by 
some  genuine  grasp  of  fundamentals  in  his 
thinking. 

No  single  student  can  be  at  his  best  in 
all  these  or  can  even  make  any  two  of  them 
his  major  interest,  but  a  certain  elementary 
knowledge  of  all  these  fields,  thorough  as 
far  as  it  goes,  is  a  better  foundation  for  a 
genuine  education  than  the  most  elaborate 
training  in  any  one  specialty. 


[11 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


When  one  builds  a  pyramid  it  must  come 
to  a  point  somewhere.  It  can  only  be  built, 
with  the  conditions  as  we  find  them,  at  a 
certain  angle,  for  material  will  not  lie  on  a 
slope  too  steep.  How  high  it  may  be,  there- 
fore, when  the  apex  is  reached  will  depend 
upon  the  breadth  of  the  base.  In  your  edu- 
cation, you  are  building  character  and  per- 
sonality, which  is  much  more  important 
than  any  special  ability  for  money-making, 
and  the  apex  of  that  personahty  will  be 
high  in  proportion  as  you  avoid  the  narrow 
base  which  results  from  too  much  specializ- 
ing in  the  earlier  years.  Let  the  foundation 
which  precedes  your  special  or  professional 
training  be  as  broad  as  it  lies  within  your 
power  to  make  it. 

If  you  specialize  rigidly  in  the  early  years, 
you  may  a  little  later  change  your  purpose 
in  life  and  find  yourself  handicapped  by  the 
former  narrow  outlook.  The  college  is  a 
place  where  many  a  fellow  finds  himself  for 
the  first  time,  and  the  fellow  he  finds  is  often- 
times another  and  perhaps  a  better  man  than 
the  one  he  had  planned  for  in  the  earlier 
years.  He  may  take  his  college  course 
expecting  to  be  a  lawyer,  but  that  spiritual 

[12  1 


THE     FIRST     INNING 


impulse,  which  lands  many  a  man  in  the 
ministry,  may  be  at  work  beneath  the  sur- 
face, none  the  less  potent  for  being  one  of 
those  unseen  things  which  are  eternal.  If 
in  his  college  days  he  entirely  ignores  Greek 
or  turns  his  back  on  philosophy  and  ethics 
as  having  little  practical  worth,  he  will  find 
himself  at  a  great  disadvantage  if  he  finally 
faces  about  toward  the  pulpit.  As  Crom- 
well said  to  the  theologians  who  were  so 
cock-sure  in  their  opinions,  "Beloved  breth- 
ren, I  beseech  you  by  the  mercies  of  God 
believe  it  possible  that  you  may  be  mistaken." 
You  may  be  mistaken  as  to  the  work  you 
will  do  in  life.  It  is  unwise  therefore  to 
discount  that  possible  future  by  narrowing 
down  too  soon  to  some  specialty  which  may 
prove  to  be  off  the  turnpike  when  you  make 
final  selection  of  your  life-work. 

The  selection  of  habits  in  a  modern 
university  is  left  almost  entirely  to  the 
judgment  of  the  individual  student.  The 
college  rules  grow  fewer  year  by  year.  Per- 
sonal supervision  becomes  impossible  where 
the  enrolment  reaches  into  the  thousands. 
Parents  are  sometimes  unaware  of  the  meas- 
ure of  liberty  accorded.     College  presidents 

[131 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


entertain  each  other  with  experiences  which 
come  to  them  in  the  way  of  letters  from 
anxious  mammas.  One  president  tells  us 
of  a  letter  received  from  a  fond  mother 
whose  son  had  just  entered  —  "I  shall 
expect  you  to  send  me  a  long  letter  each 
week  telling  me  how  my  darling  boy  is 
doing."  Another  reports  a  letter  from  a 
father  —  "Pleae  send  me  each  week  a  full 
report  of  my  son's  absences,  of  his  failures 
in  recitation,  and  your  own  impress  on  as 
to  the  progress  he  is  making.''  The  very 
humor  of  these  suggestions  indicates  to 
what  measure  the  reedom  of  the  student 
has  been  extended.  It  would  be  somewhat 
difficult  for  President  Lowell  or  President 
Hadley,  for  President  Jordan  or  President 
Wheeler  to  see  to  it  that  the  boys  and  girls 
eat  the  proper  amounts  of  wholesome  food 
and  put  on  their  rubbers  when  it  rains. 

University  life  is  not  a  personally  con- 
ducted tour  with  the  trains  and  hotels,  the 
points  of  interest  and  suggestions  as  to 
clothing,  all  printed  in  the  schedule.  It 
is  a  case  of  going  abroad  upon  the  conti- 
nent of  learning,  relying  upon  your  own  let- 
ter of  credit  to  draw  supplies  from  the  banks 


14 


T  II  E     V  I  11  S  T     1  N  N  1  N  C 


of  opportunity  open  to  you,  with  the  neces- 
sity upon  you  of  learning  to  speak  the  lan- 
guage and  order  your  trip  for  yourself  in  a 
way  to  gain  the  utmost  possible  good.  The 
lEheltered  life  policy,  suitable  for  little  boys, 
must  come  to  an  end  some  time  and  the 
young  man  be  compelled  to  face  the  good 
or  bad  results  of  his  own  choices.  The 
beginning  of  the  college  course  is  no  doubt 
an  appropriate  time  to  inaugurate  this  new 
regime. 

You  will  enter  college  without  any  definite 
college  habits.  This  will  be  at  once  an  ad- 
vantage and  a  peril.  Habits  are  sometimes 
heavy,  troublesome  chains;  they  are  some- 
times the  best  friends  in  sight.  In  driving 
over  a  mountain  road  on  a  dark  night  when 
one  cannot  see  even  his  team,  the  deep  ruts 
are  a  comfort  and  a  safeguard  —  as  the  driver 
hears  the  wagon  chuckling  along  in  the 
ruts  he  knows  that  he  is  not  on  the  point 
of  going  over  the  grade.  Certain  useful 
habits,  which  come  from  doing  certain  things 
in  certain  ways  over  and  over  again,  are  bene- 
ficial in  that  they  take  sufficient  care  of  those 
lines  of  acton  and  leave  the  man's  will  and 
attention  free  to  deal  with  other  problems. 


15 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


The  habits  you  select  and  exhibit  during 
the  first  year  will  almost  inevitably  deter- 
mine your  standing  with  the  faculty  and 
with  the  students.  When  you  enter  you 
are  what  cattlemen  call  a  "maverick"  — 
there  is  no  brand  on  you.  Your  associates 
will  wait  to  see  where  you  belong.  By  your 
own  choices  you  will  brand  yourself  as 
studious  or  trifling,  as  thorough  or  a  dabbler, 
as  honest  or  a  cheat,  as  clean  and  sound  in 
your  moral  life  or  as  shady.  The  habits 
of  the  first  year  will  brand  you  and  in  the 
award  of  college  honors  at  the  hands  of  the 
faculty  or  of  the  students,  and  in  the  opera- 
tion of  university  influences  upon  your 
career  after  you  graduate,  the  brand  you 
wear  will  be  well-nigh  determinative.  Look 
at  it  carefully,  then,  before  you  apply  it 
to  yourself,  for  its  mark  will  stay. 

You  cannot  afford  to  shilly-shally.  The 
man  who  spends  his  time  in  high  school  or 
college  mainly  for  his  own  amusement  is 
a  sham  and  a  sneak.  He  is  there  at  consid- 
erable cost  to  somebody  —  parents,  tax- 
payers, professors  who  are  doing  educational 
work  out  of  love  for  it  when  they  might  be 
doing  something  much  more  remunerative  — 


16 


THE     FIRST    INNING 


and  when  he  merely  puts  up  a  bluff  at  study- 
ing he  stamps  himself  as  a  sneak. 

The  men  who  undertake  to  get  through 
their  examinations  by  a  kind  of  death-bed 
repentance  become  cheap  men.  In  the  moral 
world  a  man  is  judged  not  by  the  few  holy 
emotions  he  can  scramble  together  in  the 
last  fifteen  minutes  of  earthly  existence;  he 
is  judged  by  the  whole  trend  and  drift  of  his 
life,  by  the  deeds  done  in  the  body,  by  the 
entire  accumulation  and  net  result  of  his 
living  as  deposited  in  the  character  formed. 
This  is  sound  theology  in  any  branch  of  the 
Christian  Church  and  the  principle  involved 
is  also  sound  in  pedagogy.  The  real  test  of 
the  student's  work  is  not  to  be  found  in  what 
he  did  last  night  or  in  what  he  can  show 
upon  occasion  as  the  result  of  a  hasty  cram- 
ming, but  in  what  he  has  been  doing  through 
all  the  days  and  nights  preceding  the  exam- 
ination and  in  that  net  result  which  stands 
revealed  in  his  mental  grasp  and  effective- 
ness. Whether  he  becomes  a  man  who  will 
stand  the  hard  tests  the  world  puts  upon 
every  one  who  undertakes  to  do  important 
work,  will  depend  largely  upon  the  habits 
he  forms  in  the  first  year.     He  may  take  low 

[171 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


ideals  and  live  down  to  them;  or  he  may 
set  high  ideals  and  then  direct  his  energy 
and  shape  the  methods  of  his  life  unceasingly 
to  the  hard  task  of  living  up  to  them. 

There  will  also  come  the  choice  of  inti- 
mates. You  will  have  acquaintances  many 
—  the  more  the  better.  You  will  have,  I 
hope,  a  large  circle  of  friends  and  you  will 
discover  that  college  friendships  are  the  most 
lasting  and  perhaps  the  most  rewarding  of 
any  you  form.  But  of  lives  so  close  as  to 
give  shape  and  color  and  odor  to  your  life, 
there  will  not  be  many;  and  for  that  reason 
the  intimates  are  to  be  chosen  with  the 
greater  care. 

You  can  know  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men.  You  can  be  on  good  terms  with  many 
whose  prevailing  attitudes  toward  life  do 
not  meet  your  wish.  You  cannot  afford  to 
be  on  intimate  terms  with  a  man  lacking 
in  those  fundamental  qualities  of  every-day 
rectitude  which  are  legal  tender  the  world 
over.  The  man  you  admit  to  your  heart 
and  life  as  an  intimate  ought  to  be  "hall 
marked"  as  they  say  in  England;  he  ought 
to  have  the  word  "sterling"  stamped  upon 
him,  indicating   that   in  the  great  melting- 

[181 


TUE     FIRST    INNING 


pot  of  human  experience  he  will  meet  the 
test  and  show  full  face  value. 

It  will  be  good  to  have  a  few  close  friends 
who  are  not  students.  There  are  towns- 
people whose  main  interest  is  in  the  larger 
life  outside  the  university  whose  friendship 
you  need.  There  is  some  member  of  the 
faculty  whom  you  ought  to  know  well.  In 
many  colleges  every  student  has  a  "per- 
sonal adviser"  in  the  faculty.  It  is  a  fool- 
ish mistake  to  look  upon  the  professors  as 
your  enemies  or  as  being  indifferent  to  you, 
lacking  in  any  genuine  interest  in  your  prob- 
lems. They  covet  a  closer  touch  with  their 
students  than  the  young  men  in  their  mis- 
taken reserve  are  ready  to  accord  them. 
The  closer  friendship  of  some  one,  wise, 
mature,  sympathetic  man  in  the  faculty 
will  be  an  influence  wholesome  and  abiding, 
making  always  for  your  best  development. 
The  mere  fact  that  some  weak  man  may 
undertake  to  "  cultivate  "  a  professor  in  the 
spirit  of  the  sycophant  need  not  deter 
strong  men  from  the  enjoyment  of  such  friend- 
ships in  straightforward,  manly  fashion. 

Let  me  congratulate  you  that  you  are  in 
college!     It   is  a  jolly  thing  to  be  alive  at 

[19  1 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


all,  these  days,  and  to  be  alive  and  young 
and  at  school  —  why,  the  whole  world  is 
yours!  The  world  is  yours  potentially,  and 
wise,  right  decisions  during  that  first  year 
will  aid  mightily  in  making  a  generous  meas- 
ure of  it  actually  yours.  You  may,  if  you 
will,  score  a  good  number  of  runs  off  your 
own  batting  by  the  way  you  play  the  game 
in  the  first  inning. 


20 


II 

ATHLETICS 


II 

ATHLETICS 


ALL  the  human  beings  we  know  any- 
thing about  have  the  cheerful 
habit  of  Hving  in  bodies;  there  is 
a  physical  basis  underlying  and  condition- 
ing all  earthly  activity.  Physical  vitality, 
therefore,  has  a  direct  bearing  on  possible 
achievement.  A  rousing  stomach  ready  to 
take  what  you  give  it  and  rejoice  over  it; 
lungs  large,  sound,  and  unspoiled  by  inha- 
ling what  was  never  meant  for  them;  heart 
action  reliable  because  never  tampered  with 
by  drugs  or  hurtful  indulgences;  nerves 
prompt  and  accurate  as  telegraph  instru- 
ments, but  ready  to  sleep  when  put  to  bed 
because  never  abused;  muscles  which  take 
up  hard  work  and  laugh  over  it  as  those  who 
find  great  spoil  —  all  these  are  useful  items 
in  that  physical  excellence  to  be  gained  and 
guarded    as    a    priceless    heritage.     In    all 


23] 


THE    GAP    AND    GOW 


intellectual  work  where  men  undertake  to 
think,  write,  or  speak  there  is  a  demand  for 
red  blood,  which  is  better  ten  times  over 
than  the  blue  blood  of  any  fancied  aristoc- 
racy! And  in  moral  life,  if  you  are  ^to  put 
down  evil  under  your  feet  and  be  vigorously, 
joyously,  winsomely  good,  a  sound  physique 
for  your  moral  nature  to  ride  in  all  weathers 
will  be  a  perpetual  advantage. 

In  making  young  men  physically  com- 
petent, high  school  and  college  athletics, 
provided  they  are  not  tacked  on  from  the 
outside  as  a  frill  or  held  as  a  mere  aside  to 
which  the  students  carelessly  turn  in  hours 
of  leisure,  may  possess  high  value.  They 
can  be  made  a  genuine,  vital  expression  of 
the  life  of  the  school  and  be  related  in  some 
wise  way  to  the  larger  purpose  of  education. 
Rightly  ordered  they  aid  mightily  in  keep- 
ing the  tools  sharp,  in  developing  a  full 
stock  of  vital  force,  in  giving  the  poise, 
self-mastery,  endurance  needed  for  the  work 
of  life.  The  boy  who  learns  to  play  with 
zest  will  be  better  able  to  do  the  work  of  a 
man  with  his  own  full  sense  of  joy  in  it. 

David  Starr  Jordan  has  said  many  times 
that  "the  football  field  is  a  more  wholesome 


24 


v  r  11  L  K  '!•  1  c 


place  for  a  young  man  than  the  ballroom," 
and  those  who  know  the  facts  endorse  his 
claim.  The  young  fellow  gets  hurt  now  and 
then  in  football,  but  taking  into  considera- 
tion the  part  of  him  which  suffers  and  the 
after  effects  of  it,  we  commonly  find  that 
the  injury  is  less  damaging  than  are  the 
hurts  received  in  indoor,  fashionable  dissi- 
pation. Athletics  bring  men  out  under  God's 
open  sky,  into  the  fresh  air,  and  under  the 
stimulus  of  healthy  rivalries.  They  train 
men  to  see  clearly,  to  hear  accurately  the 
first  time,  to  decide  quickly,  to  move  in- 
stantly, and  to  stand  together  in  a  genuinely 
social  spirit.  These  qualities  have  high 
place  in  the  combination  of  talents  which 
makes  for  success;  they  have  high  place  as 
well  in  the  formation  of  sound  character. 

But  to  tackle  the  subject  more  closely 
let  me  name  several  w^ays  in  which  athletics 
worthy  of  an  educational  institution  are 
particularly  beneficial.  They  serve  as  an 
outlet  for  the  surplus  physical  energy  of 
boys  and  young  men.  In  simply  walking 
to  school,  even  though  he  carries  some  girFs 
books  as  well  as  his  own,  the  healthy  young 
man  does  not  consume  in  twenty-four  hours 


'^o  \ 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


all  the  physical  energy  he  manufactures. 
Throbbing  within  him  there  is  an  exuberant 
physical  life,  excitable  and  not  yet  under 
firm  control.  There  is  the  consciousness  of 
new  and  untried  powers  in  regard  to  which 
he  feels  deep  concern.  There  is  the  push 
of  impulse  not  fully  regulated  by  con- 
science or  experience.  Unless  there  is  some 
wholesome  outlet  he  will  burst  the  levee, 
devastating  whole  fields  of  his  own  nature 
and  of  other  natures  besides,  by  an  un- 
wholesome use  of  that  surplus  physical 
energy. 

Training  for  athletic  events  means  early 
hours,  clean  habits,  constant  occupation  of 
mind  and  body,  for  in  any  college  worthy 
of  the  name  the  young  man  must  be  a 
student  all  the  while,  as  well  as  a  quarter- 
back or  a  pitcher.  The  training,  therefore, 
becomes  a  mighty  safeguard  thrown  around 
a  lot  of  young  fellows  who  are  face  to  face 
with  the  devil  of  temptation.  Even  for  those 
who  do  not  make  the  team  or  the  nine  or 
the  track,  if  they  are  taking  regular  gymna- 
sium work  in  hope  of  that  success  next  year, 
or  if  in  other  ways  they  have  caught  the 
spirit   of   clean,   honest,   joyous   sport,   ath- 

[  W  1 


A  T  II  L  E  T  I  C  S 


letics  give  an  added  motive  and  a  stronger 
impulse  toward  clean  living. 

"Wild  oats,"  as  they  are  lightly  called, 
produce  a  sorry  and  a  debasing  harvest. 
No  man  with  sense  enough  to  be  allowed  to 
run  at  large  ever  looks  himself  in  the  face 
and  takes  satisfaction  in  the  memory  of 
such  sowing.  The  fellow  who  thinks  he  is 
not  wise  or  experienced  until  he  has  become 
familiar  with  the  haunts  of  gamblers  and 
harlots,  until  he  has  the  smut  and  smell  of 
those  associations  upon  him,  is  regarded  by 
saner  men  as  green,  oh,  so  green!  He  some- 
times calls  his  escapades  "seeing  life,"  but 
it  is  not  life  he  sees  there;  it  is  death  —  and 
a  foul,  rotten,  ill-smelling  type  of  death. 
The  trainer  will  not  tolerate  it.  The  man 
himself  would  be  regarded  as  a  traitor  to 
the  university  if  on  the  team  he  "broke 
training"  for  such  indulgence.  And  the 
whole  spirit  of  wholesome  athletics  is  such  as 
to  stamp  that  course  as  base  and  mean. 
As  an  outlet  for  surplus  energy  then  and  as 
a  safeguard  against  certain  forms  of  wrong- 
doing, w^holesome  athletics  in  college  life 
hold  a  place  of  honor. 

They  furnish  also  a  means  of  joyous  recre- 


THE    CAP    AND    G  O  W  N 


ation.  The  mind  bent  and  strained  all  the 
time  with  serious  employment  loses  its 
spring,  if  not  sometimes  its  sanity.  The 
relaxation  of  honest  fun,  the  excitement  of 
a  sport  where  one  measures  his  strength  and 
skill  against  that  of  others,  the  self-forget- 
fulness  which  comes  with  absorption  in 
something  other  than  one's  work  —  all  these 
are  imperatively  demanded  for  .the  normal 
development  of  youth  into  maturity.  We 
would  all  bring  up  in  the  madhouse  or  the 
sanitarium,  if  we  did  not  now  and  then  have 
some  such  diversion! 

This  demand  for  recreation,  if  no  intelli- 
gent and  wholesome  forms  of  expression  are 
at  hand,  crops  out  in  those  college  pranks 
which  sometimes  border  on  lawlessness. 
The  spontaneous  fun  of  college  life  is  ever 
enjoyed  and  applauded.  There  was  a  Yale 
man  once  suspended  for  this  excusable  caper. 
The  students  were  required  to  attend  service 
on  Sunday  in  the  chapel  where  the  preacher 
was  sometimes  dull  and  tiresome.  One  par- 
ticular offender  against  the  youthful  demand 
for  vitality  and  brevity  used  to  divide  his 
sermons  into  heads  and  subheads  almost 
endlessly,    Roman    1,    Arabic    1.      One    in 


28 


A  T  H  L  E  T  I  C  S 


brackets,  a,  b,  c,  etc.,  etc.  This  friend  of 
mine  arranged  to  have  his  class  of  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  men  sit  together  well  up  in 
front,  and  every  time  the  preacher  passed 
from  one  head  to  another,  they  uncrossed 
their  legs  in  unison  and  crossed  them  over 
the  other  way.  When  the  reverend  doctor 
passed  from  one  in  brackets  to  two,  or  from 
a  to  b,  he  saw  one  hundred  and  sixty  pairs 
of  legs  taken  apart  and  recrossed  simul- 
taneously. When  this  had  been  done  six 
or  eight  times  the  people  in  the  adjacent  sec- 
tion and  in  the  galleries  became  more  inter- 
ested in  watching  this  mighty  movement 
of  legs  than  in  the  sermon,  and  the  minister 
himself  was  so  disconcerted  that  he  pres- 
ently gave  it  up  and  closed  the  service  with 
the  sermon  unfinished.  The  dull  preacher 
might  better  have  put  more  life  into  his 
sermon,  thus  affording  some  legitimate  oppor- 
tunity for  the  exercise  of  interest  on  the  part 
of  his  hearers. 

Athletics  bring  wholesome  recreation  not 
only  to  those  who  play  on  the  eleven  or  the 
nine,  or  who  appear  on  the  track,  but  to  that 
larger  company  of  fellows  who  strive  for 
that  honor;  to  a  multitude  whose  interest 

[29  1 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


in  exercise  and  outdoor  sport  is  quickened 
though  they  never  aspire  to  'varsity  posi- 
tions; to  the  thousands  of  spectators  who 
assemble  to  witness  the  game  and  cheer  the 
winners.  The  physical  quickening,  the  men- 
tal relaxation,  the  temporary  forgetfulness 
of  hard  work,  the  joyous  hours  in  the  open 
air,  are  all  good  for  the  whole  company  of 
people  who  thus,  directly  and  indirectly, 
share  in  the  advantages  of  athletics.  Keep 
the  game  free  from  the  taint  of  professional- 
ism, free  from  betting,  free  from  the  disposi- 
tion that  would  win  fairly  if  possible,  but  win 
at  any  cost,  and  we  have  a  form  of  recreation 
distinctly  beneficial  to  the  whole  community ! 
The  discipline  of  athletics  develops  obedi- 
ence, self-control,  and  the  spirit  of  coopera- 
tion, all  of  them  useful,  moral  qualities. 
Many  a  rich  man's  son,  ambitious  for  col- 
lege honors,  has  gotten  his  first  taste  of 
real  discipline  on  the  athletic  field.  At 
home  he  had  indulgent  parents  —  they  were 
self-indulgent  because  of  their  wealth  and 
they  scarcely  knew  how  to  be  other  than 
indulgent  to  their  children.  The  boy  was 
waited  upon  by  well-paid  servants  eager  to 
do  his  bidding  and  humor  his  whims.     His 


30] 


ATHLETICS 


generous  tips  greased  the  way  for  him  when 
he  traveled  or  went  in  pursuit  of  pleasure. 
He  had  never  felt  the  rough,  raw  edge  of  an 
exacting  discipline. 

But  when  the  trainer  took  him  in  hand  this 
son  of  affluence  was  treated  as  though  he 
had  been  working  his  way  through  college 
by  currying  some  man's  horse  or  by  wait- 
ing on  the  table  at  a  boarding  club.  If  he 
played  football  he  was  knocked  down  as 
promptly  and  as  hard,  when  he  got  in  the 
way  of  a  bigger  and  better  player,  as  if  his 
father  had  been  a  hod-carrier.  And  all 
this  is  exactly  as  it  should  be!  Sometime, 
somewhere,  he  should  learn  the  democratic 
spirit  by  being  compelled  to  meet  his  fellow 
men  without  favor  shown  or  advantage  given; 
he  should  learn  how  to  take  the  hard  knocks 
and  keep  sweet,  not  losing  his  head  or  his 
temper.  The  boys  say,  "If  a  fellow  plays 
football  it  does  not  take  long  to  find  out 
what  kind  of  a  fellow  he  is."  The  real 
quality  of  the  man  comes  out  more  readily 
and  more  genuinely  perhaps  than  it  would 
in  a  college  prayer-meeting.  And  the  man 
himself  finds  out  what  kind  of  a  fellow  he 
is,  to  his  own  lasting  advantage. 

[311 


THE    CAP    AND    G  O  A^  N 


Wellington  used  to  say  that  the  Battle  of 
Waterloo  was  won  on  the  athletic  fields  of 
the  English  schools.  He  meant  that  when 
he  found  himself  standing  up  against  Napo- 
leon's fiercest  attacks,  he  had  under  him  a 
body  of  men  who  had  not  waited  for  their 
army  experience  to  learn  discipline.  Obe- 
dience, self-control,  and  the  necessity  of 
standing  together  had  all  been  learned  long 
ago  at  Rugby  and  Eton  and  Harrow  until 
these  qualities  were  bred  in  the  bone!  Now 
as  mature  men  they  fought  the  great  battle 
through  to  a  finish  just  as  they  used  to  put 
the  pigskin  across  their  opponent's  goal  in 
the  years  gone  by. 

To  gain  this  benefit  in  any  worthy  meas- 
ure there  must  be  a  genuine  participation  in 
the  athletic  life  of  the  institution.  Some  stu- 
dents imagine  that  they  are  greatly  inter- 
ested in  athletics  because  they  talk  about 
the  various  events,  smoke  countless  ciga- 
rettes on  the  bleachers,  gossip  endlessly  in 
the  fraternity  house  as  to  how  the  game  was 
lost  or  won,  taking  up  the  time  of  the  players 
with  their  useless  prattle.  All  this,  how- 
ever, is  as  much  like  real  interest  in  athletics 
as  a  bandbox  is  like  a  granite  block.     The 

[321 


ATHLETICS 


interest  to  be  worthy  of  the  name  and  to 
insure  any  actual  benefit  must  be  a  genuine 
interest. 

There  is  something  admirable  in  the  atti- 
tude of  those  men  who  try  for  the  team  or 
the  nine,  and  having  failed,  show  themselves 
glad  to  play  on  the  second  eleven  or  nine. 
"Scrub  teams"  they  are  sometimes  igv\o- 
miniously  and  erroneously  called  —  their 
loyalty  and  devotion  to  the  institution  is 
often  such  that  they  might  be  called  "Se- 
quoia teams."  Their  spirit  of  sacrifice  is 
such  that  they  are  willing  to  stand  out  as 
only  second  best  and  to  be  practised  on  by 
better  men  to  the  end  that  those  better  men 
may  gain  still  more  honor  and  glory  for 
themselves  This  spirit  of  loyalty  and  good 
will  serves  to  exalt  the  part  they  take  into 
a  genuine  culture  in  character. 

The  spirit  of  cooperation  is  strengthened 
by  college  athletics.  Men  are  knit  together 
by  close  ties  when  they  participate  in  train- 
ing or  in  the  game.  They  learn  to  rely  upon 
each  other.  Conceit  and  selfish  pride  are 
eliminated  until  the  whole  nature  is  in  a  fair 
way  to  be  genuinely  socialized.  The  man 
learns  that  he  cannot  catch  and  pitch  and 

[331 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


play  left  field  all  at  once.  He  must  fill 
his  own  place  and  act  with  other  men  who 
are  filling  their  places.  He  must  take  his 
color  in  the  pattern  and  join  his  yarn  to  their 
yarn  in  a  genuine  spirit  of  fraternal  cooper- 
ation. He  must  subordinate  his  own  per- 
sonal interest  or  advantage  to  the  larger 
interests  of  the  institution  which  he  repre- 
sents. If  he  has  really  entered  into  the  spirit 
of  the  best  college  athletics,  he  will  forever 
after  be  a  better  husband  and  father,  a 
better  neighbor  and  citizen,  a  better  man 
in  the  world  of  industry,  and  a  better  church- 
man, for  his  systematic  training  in  this 
spirit  of  cooperation. 

Athletics  also  express  and  develop  what 
we  call  "college  spirit."  This  sense  of  joy 
in  one's  own  college,  the  generous  pride  and 
enthusiasm  over  victories  won  by  other 
students,  the  knitting  together  of  the  stu- 
dent body  in  paying  the  necessary  dues,  in 
cheering  the  games,  in  helping  to  maintain 
high  and  honest  standards,  all  go  to  make 
up  that  "college  spirit." 

This  bit  of  sentiment  over  one's  own  insti- 
tution does  not  pay  term  bills  or  prepare 
lessons  or  write  examination  papers,  but  it 

[341 


A  T  11  L  K  T  1  G  S 


aids  in  the  doing  of  every  one  of  these  things. 
The  fife  and  drum  in  the  army  do  not  throw 
up  breastworks  or  fire  off  guns  to  disable 
the  enemy,  but  they  do  aid  in  the  general 
undertaking  by  the  enthusiasm  and  esprit 
de  corps  they  help  to  arouse.  That  college 
spirit,  which  is  indeed  a  useful  educational 
force,  is  always  heightened  by  wholesome 
athletics.  That  splendid  hit  when  there 
were  three  men  on  the  bases;  that  break 
through  the  line  or  around  the  end  and  the 
run  down  the  field;  that  last  spurt  at  the 
end  of  the  hundred-yard  dash,  with  a  whole 
horizon  of  students  and  other  spectators 
rending  the  skies  with  their  enthusiastic 
cheers,  all  aid  in  the  development  of  a  whole- 
some enthusiasm  over  one's  own  college. 

The  student  who  holds  himself  apart  from 
it  all  in  blase  fashion,  affecting  to  look  with 
cool  contempt  on  the  joyous  fervor  of  his 
fellows  is  either  diseased  or  else  his  show  of 
indifference  is  only  skin  deep.  The  sneering, 
flippant,  cynical  young  person  is  as  much 
of  a  freak  as  would  be  a  ten-year-old  boy 
bald-headed,  with  a  long  white  beard.  In- 
tensity, enthusiasm,  absorption,  belong  to 
college    life     and     they    work     their    good 

[351 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


results  in  transforming  youth  into  man- 
hood. 

The  two  main  evils,  aside  from  the  com- 
mon evils  of  betting  and  dissipation  which 
are  not  confined  to  athletes,  to  be  guarded 
against  are  the  spirit  of  professionalism  and 
the  habit  of  unfairness.  The  smuggling  in  of 
a  professional  baseball  or  football  player 
whose  college  standing  is  maintained  by 
snap  courses  or  by  indulgent  professors,  is 
a  thing  despicable  in  the  eyes  of  all  right- 
minded  college  men.  It  is  the  sacrifice  of  the 
university  idea  to  the  demand  for  victory  in 
college  sports.  And  in  similar  fashion  the 
disposition  to  win  by  fair  means  or  by  foul, 
which  has  sometimes  disfigured  our  college 
athletics,  lies  at  the  root  of  the  ugly  distrust 
felt  by  institutions  for  each  other  on  the 
athletic  field.  Better  no  victories  than  vic- 
tories of  dishonor!  The  word  of  the  old 
professor  is  always  in  point:  "Play  your  games 
as  gentlemen,  fair,  true,  and  generous.  Win 
your  games  as  gentlemen  when  you  can, 
with  no  offensive  conceit  over  your  success. 
Lose  your  games  as  gentlemen  when  you 
must,  with  no  whimpering  or  silly  excuses." 

It  is  of  vital  importance  that  the  whole 


36 


ATHLETICS 


interest  of  college  athletics  be  held  firmly 
within  the  grasp  of  that  larger  purpose 
already  indicated.  The  main  business  of 
life  is  not  to  play  baseball  or  football,  but 
to  do  certain  things  treated  more  directly 
in  other  departments  of  college  life.  You 
cannot  afford  to  play  any  game  at  the 
expense  of  your  highest  development  as  one 
preparing  to  do  his  full  share  of  the  world's 
work.  Strive  to  make  your  life  rich  in  mean- 
ing, full  of  the  power  to  serve,  fine  and  true 
in  its  inner  quality,  and  that  fundamental 
purpose  will  so  dominate  your  interest  in 
athletics  as  to  render  your  bodily  exercise 
profitable  both  for  the  life  that  now  is  and 
for  that  larger  life  that  lies  ahead. 


37 


Ill 

THE   FRATERNITY   QUESTION 


Ill 

THE    FRATERNITY    QUESTION 


THE  sentiment  of  love  between  per- 
sons of  the  opposite  sex  has  monop- 
olized the  popular  interest,  while 
other  fine  forms  of  human  relationship  have 
failed  of  their  due  recognition.  The  feeling 
of  friendship  between  persons  of  the  same  sex 
has  a  profound  significance.  The  friendship 
of  Damon  and  Pythias  and  that  of  David 
and  Jonathan  have  been  sung  by  the  poets 
and  the  memory  of  them  perpetuated  in 
the  rituals  of  well  known  fraternal  orders 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them  classic. 

It  is  good  for  us  to  know  and  to  love  those 
with  whom  the  question  of  sex,  with  its 
mysterious  attractions  and  repulsions,  does 
not  enter  in.  The  woman  who  cares  little 
for  other  women,  who  is  only  happy  when 
she  is  talking  with  men,  or  the  man  who  is 
so  much  of  a  "ladies'  man"  as  to  be  ill  at 


41] 


Of   THE 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


ease  when  thrown  for  an  hour  exclusively 
with  men,  is  mentally,  if  not  morally,  dis- 
eased. It  is  good  for  the  souls  of  men  to  be 
knit  with  the  souls  of  their  fellows;  it  is 
fitting  that  women  should  know  and  enjoy 
other  women. 

It  is  the  need  for  that  association  which 
lies  at  the  root  of  the  almost  countless  fra- 
ternities found  in  all  our  cities.  In  search- 
ing out  names  and  mysterious  forms  for  them 
all,  men  have  gone  clear  over  the  border 
into  what  is  both  fantastic  and  foolish. 
The  secrecy  of  these  societies  is  not  to  be 
taken  too  seriously  —  as  a  rule  it  is  mere 
dust  thrown  in  the  eyes  of  the  uninitiated. 
The  members  laugh  in  their  sleeves  knowing 
how  little  the  "secrets"  amount  to,  but  the 
organizations  offer  opportunity  for  social 
fellowship  in  a  way  to  satisfy  a  wide-spread 
desire. 

The  same  tendency,  with  some  additional 
leaning  to  clannishness  and  to  the  love  of 
mystery  found  in  most  young  people,  is 
evidenced  by  the  Greek  letter  fraternities 
in  the  colleges  and  in  many  of  the  high 
schools.  These  have  been  in  operation  for 
more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  and  they 

[421 


THE    FRATERNITY     QUESTION 


have  not  yet  by  any  means  so  justified  their 
existence  as  to  win  the  cordial  support  of 
the  best  educational  authorities.  There  is 
still  "the  fraternity  question,"  with  a  big 
interrogation  point  after  it,  put  there  by 
parents,  teachers,  and  citizens,  and  by  many 
of  the  young  people  themselves  as  they  grow 
wiser. 

I  speak  of  this  matter  as  a  fraternity  man. 
I  have  been  initiated;  I  have  worn  a  "pin," 
at  such  odd  times  as  my  "best  girl"  did  not 
happen  to  be  wearing  it.  I  know  the  myste- 
rious significance  attaching  to  the  "grip" 
when  one  student  meets  another  and  taking 
him  by  the  little  finger  pulls  it  surreptitiously 
nine  times  to  the  left.  I  have  been  through 
all  this,  for  I  am  a  member  of  Alpha  Eta 
of  Sigma  Chi.  What  I  say,  therefore,  is 
not  spoken  in  that  prejudice  which  sometimes 
attaches  to  the  utterances  of  the  "anti- 
frat"  man  who  sees  it  all  from  the  outside 
and  comes  up  hot,  perhaps,  from  some  hard- 
fought  campaign  where  the  line  was  closely 
drawn  between  "frats"  and    "anti-frats." 

I  speak  also  with  a  deep  sense  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  question.  The  principal 
of  the  high  school  in  my  own  city,  which  has 


43 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


an  enrolment  of  twelve  hundred  pupils,  said 
to  me  recently  when  I  had  been  asked  to 
speak  on  fraternities,  "You  have  a  big 
subject  on  your  hands."  He  spoke  as  an 
educator  watching  the  lives  of  that  large 
company  of  young  people  five  days  in  the 
week.  I  speak  as  a  pastor  and  a  teacher  of 
spiritual  values  and  I  agree  with  him  that  it 
is  "a  big  subject." 

The  power  of  intimate  association  for  good 
or  ill  —  no  nation  under  heaven,  Christian 
or  pagan,  has  failed  to  condense  its  obser- 
vation and  experience  on  that  point  into 
some  terse  proverb.  "He  that  walketh 
with  wise  men  shall  be  wise:  but  a  compan- 
ion of  fools  shall  be  destroyed,"  said  the  old 
Hebrew.  "Evil  company  doth  corrupt  good 
manners,"  said  the  Greek,  and  Paul  quoted  it 
in  his  letter  to  the  Greek  Christians  at  Cor- 
inth. "Talent  is  perfected  in  solitude,  but 
character  is  formed  in  the  stream  of  the 
world,"  is  the  German  of  it.  "Live  with 
wolves  and  you  will  learn  to  howl,"  the 
Spanish  proverb  has  it;  and  in  homely  Hol- 
land fashion,  the  Dutch  proverb  is,  "  Lie 
down  with  dogs  and  you  will  get  up  with 
fleas."     In  these  terse  sayings,  elegant  and 

[441 


THE     FRATERNITY    QUESTION 

inelegant,  the  race  has  recorded  its  judgment 
as  to  the  power  of  association.  The  fra- 
ternity promotes  certain  forms  of  most  inti- 
mate association  at  a  crucial  period  and  thus 
enters  powerfully  for  good  or  ill  into  the 
lives  of  young  people. 

There  are  certain  credits  to  be  entered  in 
making  up  a  trial  balance  for  the  fraternity. 
It  marks  out  a  definite  group  of  special 
friends  for  closer  association.  One  cannot 
become  intimately  acquainted  with  the  whole 
human  race  or  even  with  as  much  of  it  as 
happens  to  be  present  in  a  large  high  school 
or  college.  Whether  it  is  done  in  organized 
or  in  unorganized  ways,  there  must  come  a 
process  of  selection  by  which  one's  social 
interests  are  kept  to  a  manageable  size. 

The  fraternity  gives  opportunity  for  learn- 
ing to  subordinate  the  purely  personal  and 
selfish  interests  to  the  larger  good.  The  fra- 
ternity man  has  in  view  something  beyond 
his  own  individual  pleasure  or  success. 
He  is  taught  to  aid  some  fraternity  brother 
who  has  good  prospects,  in  athletics,  in  a 
race  for  some  class  honor,  or  in  debate. 
Mutual  admiration,  a  common  enthusiasm, 
a  corporate  ambition  and  the  spirit  of  co- 

[451 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


operation,  are  thus  developed  in  the  whole 
group  by  a  feeling  of  common  interest. 

The  fraternity  brings  the  lower  class  man 
into  closer  touch  with  upper  class  men. 
The  first  year  man  is  not  a  mere  unbaked 
freshman  to  the  juniors  and  seniors  in  his 
fraternity.  They  have  an  interest  in  him, 
a  responsibility  for  him,  because  of  his  frater- 
nity connection.  These  organizations  thus 
cause  the  line  of  social  cleavage  to  run 
perpendicularly  as  well  as  horizontally.  My 
own  life  will  be  forever  different  by  reason 
of  the  friendship  of  two  upper  class  men  in 
my  university  days.  Such  friendships  are 
wholesome  for  both  the  younger  and  the 
older  men. 

The  fraternity  serves  as  a  convenient 
basis  for  fellowship  when  a  man  visits  an- 
other college  or  when  alumni  return  to  their 
alma  mater.  The  house  of  one's  own  frater- 
nity is  open  to  him,  and  affords  opportunity 
for  him  to  come  into  touch  with  the  eager, 
throbbing  life  about  him.  The  alumni  of 
a  chapter  may  also  exert  a  real  influence  for 
good  upon  the  resident  members  of  the  frater- 
nity, because  of  this  continued  association. 

The  fraternity  house  offers  a  useful  cen- 


46 


THE     FRATERNITY    QUESTION 


ter  for  returning  social  courtesies.  The 
students,  in  their  class-day  spreads  and  at 
other  times,  may  thus  indicate  their  appre- 
ciation of  social  attentions  received  from 
townspeople. 

All  this  can  be  said  and  said  heartily. 
It  may  seem  that  I  am  making  out  such  a 
strong  case  for  the  fraternities  that  any 
criticism  offered  later  will  be  of  no  avail.  It 
would  be  unfair,  however,  not  to  state  the 
advantages  as  strongly  as  one's  own  judg- 
ment would  approve. 

But  there  are  certain  offsets  in  fraternity 
life  which  must  come  up  for  an  equally  frank 
and  thorough  consideration.  There  is  a 
constant  tendency  in  any  fraternity  house 
to  spend  more  time  and  more  money  than 
many  a  student  can  afford.  No  fellow  of 
spirit  can  allow  others  to  treat  him,  take  him 
to  the  theater,  show  him  all  manner  of  atten- 
tions without  feeling  an  obligation  resting 
upon  him  to  return  these  courtesies.  A  few 
men  in  a  fraternity  with  rich  fathers,  large 
allowances,  and  warm  hearts,  can,  with  no 
sort  of  wrong  intent,  set  the  pace  in  such  a 
way  as  to  demoralize  a  whole  group  of  young 
men.     The  man  of  modest  means  and  simple 


[47] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWxN 


habits,  dependent  upon  a  hard-working 
father  for  his  education  and  for  all  the  com- 
forts of  his  home  life,  is  apparently  forced 
into  a  gait  which  it  is  wrong  for  him  to 
take.  He  does  not  intend  to  be  mean  or 
cruel,  but  he  adopts  a  scale  of  expenditure 
which  he  cannot  afford;  he  runs  into  debt; 
he  becomes  unjust  to  his  parents,  who  are 
making  sacrifices  for  his  education.  It  re- 
quires more  grit  than  nine  out  of  ten  young 
fellows  of  the  high  school  or  college  age 
possess,  to  stand  up  and  oppose  the  course 
of  action  which  leads  to  these  ill-advised 
"good  times." 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  simplicity  is  so 
overborne  in  all  our  social  life  by  the  elab- 
orate and  the  expensive.  Business  men, 
husbands,  and  fathers,  are  being  killed  off, 
before  their  time,  by  nervous  prostration, 
heart  disease,  or  exhaustion  of  other  vital 
organs,  in  making  the  necessary  money  to 
keep  it  up.  Society  women,  mothers  and 
daughters,  are  being  sent  to  sanitariums 
and  rest  cures  by  reason  of  the  strenuous 
tasks  imposed  upon  them  in  devising  and 
arranging  new  and  elaborate  ways  of  spend- 
ing the  money.     What  a  caricature  much  of 


[48 


THE     FRATER^JITY     QUESTIO 


it  is  upon  real  social  life,  which  oiiglit  to  be 
a  joy,  a  recreation,  a  means  of  relief  from 
serious  work,  but  never  a  burdensome, 
exacting  labor! 

The  young  girl  in  high  school  gives  a 
luncheon  for  her  fraternity  elaborate  enough 
for  a  society  woman  of  fifty.  The  boys  plan 
for  a  good  time  on  a  scale  which  might 
indicate  that  they  were  solid  business  men 
well  on  in  their  prime,  with  fortunes  of  their 
own  earning  completely  at  their  disposal. 
The  whole  tendency  of  it  is  bad  and  only 
bad.  The  simple  pleasures  are  the  best 
for  everybody  and  especially  so  for  young 
people.  The  tuxedo  is  not  a  suitable  gar- 
ment for  a  five-year-old  boy  even  though  his 
father  is  able  to  buy  him  a  hundred  of  them ; 
and  some  of  our  social  activity  is  quite  as 
ridiculous  as  such  a  coat  would  be  on  the 
youngster.  It  rears  up  a  set  of  young 
people  who,  having  tasted  it  all  and  become 
blase  before  their  time,  are  now  nervously 
intent  upon  some  new  sensation  by  more 
startling  and  stimulating  forms  of  social 
life.  And  all  the  while  the  simple,  serious, 
quiet  interests  of  education  have  been  suffer- 
ing a  loss  irreparable. 

[49  1 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


There  is  also  the  tendency  in  most  fra- 
ternity houses  toward  a  wasteful  use  of  time. 
Where  there  is  a  lounging  room  with  its  open 
fire,  the  university  colors,  pillows,  pictures, 
trophies  scattered  about,  and  a  group  of 
jolly  good  fellows  always  accessible,  it  is 
not  easy  to  turn  one's  back  upon  it  and  sit 
alone  digging  on  some  difficult  subject.  Eve 
holding  out  an  apple  or  even  a  ripe  peach 
in  the  garden  of  Eden  suffers  by  compari- 
son when  placed  alongside  the  temptations 
thus  offered  to  a  student  whose  will  may 
already  be  a  trifle  lame. 

I  recall  a  certain  fraternity  house  which 
I  watched  for  a  number  of  years.  Splendid 
fellows  they  were  —  my  heart  warms  within 
me  as  I  think  of  their  faces!  It  was  always 
Indian  summer  there  —  cigarette  smoke 
until  one  could  scarcely  see  through  it.  It 
would  not  be  entirely  true  to  say  that  one 
could  cut  it  with  a  knife;  some  stronger 
implement  would  have  been  needed,  an  axe 
maybe  —  perhaps  "the  Stanford  axe."  A 
number  of  the  boys  were  keen  and  the  jolly 
talk  was  sometimes  equal  to  a  page  from 
"Life"  or  "Fliegende  Blatter." 

But  men  cannot  make  perpetual  chimneys 


50] 


THE     F  a  A  t  E  U  N  [  r  Y     QUESTION 


of  themselves  in  order  to  furnish  such  a 
volume  of  smoke  or  become  perpetual  jokers 
without  imperiling  certain  other  interests, 
much  more  important  than  smoke  or  jokes. 
And  that  same  fraternity,  genuinely  attrac- 
tive though  it  was  in  its  social  aspects, 
became  the  banner  house  on  the  campus  for 
furnishing  men  who  suddenly  went  home 
at  the  end  of  the  term,  because  "their 
fathers  needed  them  in  business,"  or  because 
"their  health  would  not  stand  the  strain  of 
college  study"  —  those  graceful  explana- 
tions which  sound  well  and  deceive  nobody, 
either  at  the  college  end  or  the  home  end 
of  the  line.  The  constant  tendency  in  all 
fraternity  life  is  to  spend  upon  pleasure 
more  time  and  more  money  than  the  average 
student  can  justly  afford. 

There  is  furthermore  the  tendency  to  a 
narrow  exclusiveness  which  sometimes  degen- 
erates into  actual  snobbishness.  This  is 
especially  true  of  the  high-school  frater- 
nities. The  spirit  of  narrow  clannishness  is 
stronger  then  than  later.  Breadth  of  sym- 
pathy, which  ought  to  be  the  spirit  of  our 
public  schools,  is  thus  destroyed.  The  girl 
is  tempted  to  think  that,  out  of  hundreds  of 


51 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


girls  in  high  school,  only  the  little  group  of 
twenty  in  her  own  fraternity  are  fine,  choice 
girls.  When  the  social  interests  are  thus 
being  "cribbed,  cabined,  and  confined,"  it 
is  not  a  long  step  to  the  spirit  of  that  bigot 
who  prayed,  "O  Lord,  bless  me  and  my  wife, 
my  son  John  and  his  wife,  us  four  and  no 
more."  The  "us  four  and  no  more"  atti- 
tude is  apparent  to  thoughtful  observers  in 
almost  all  of  the  high-school  fraternities. 
The  larger  loyalty  and  broader  sympathy 
is  overborne  by  a  narrowed  social  interest. 

It  is  the  judgment  of  an  ever-increasing 
number  of  men  at  the  head  of  the  secondary 
schools  that  the  high-school  fraternities  at 
least  are  nuisances.  This  is  their  verdict 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  many  of  the  best 
students  are  members  of  them,  striving  to 
make  them  helpful,  not  hurtful.  But  when 
the  losses  and  the  gains  are  accurately  com- 
puted, the  losses  seem  to  far  outrank  the 
gains.  The  spirit  of  social  exclusiveness  is 
opposed  to  the  spirit  of  our  public  schools 
and  encourages  the  development  of  quali- 
ties that  have  no  rightful  place  in  American 
young  people. 

Some     high-school     principals     are    non- 


52 


THE     F  R  A  T  E  II  N  I  T  Y    QUESTION 


committal,  but  more  of  them  frankly  utter 
tlieir  condemnation  of  the  fraternity  as 
prejudicial  to  the  legitimate  work  of  the 
school;  as  weakening  the  more  inclusive 
class  loyalty  and  as  offering  an  effective 
temptation  to  social  dissipation.  They  may 
not  hope  as  yet  to  carry  all  high-school 
students  with  them  in  this  judgment,  but 
if  they  could  line  up  all  parents  who  believe 
that  fraternities  tend  to  alienate  young 
people  from  their  homes,  all  high-school 
teachers  who  deplore  the  evil  which  results 
from  loyalty  to  a  part  instead  of  to  the 
whole  school,  and  all  those  who,  having 
advanced  to  college,  look  back  upon  those 
earher  fraternities  as  cases  of  premature 
development,  the  young  people  would  be 
amazed  at  the  verdict  against  the  high- 
school  fraternity! 

We  are  constantly  hearing  the  assertion 
that  it  is  difficult  for  girls  to  complete  the 
high-school  course  without  breaking  down. 
Under  anything  like  normal  conditions  such 
a  claim  should  be  preposterous!  There 
are  good  reasons  for  believing  that  the 
nervous  collapse  is  due  less  to  faithful  study 
than  to  the  unnecessary  excitements  of  fra- 


[53 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


ternity  rivalry  and  to  the  irregular  hours  and 
social  dissipation  consequent  upon  frater- 
nity life. 

The  right  place  for  the  fraternity  is  in  the 
university  where  boys  and  girls  have  become 
young  men  and  young  women,  better  able 
to  guard  such  organizations  against  these 
abuses;  better  able  to  see  to  it  that  no  bar- 
riers are  built  between  them  and  those  whom 
they  ought  to  know;  better  able  to  extend 
their  generous  admiration  to  those  not  of 
their  particular  clique.  In  the  university 
large  numbers  of  students  are  away  from 
home,  as  is  not  the  case  in  high  school  — 
and  where  it  is  wisely  controlled,  the  fra- 
ternity may  be  made  a  center  for  the  deep- 
ening of  wholesome  intimacies,  in  a  way 
to  render  it  a  useful  educational  force. 

It  is  well  for  every  student  to  postpone 
the  choice  of  a  fraternity  until  near  the  end 
of  the  first  year.  Before  he  joins,  he  will 
need  to  look  the  various  chapters  over  care- 
fully and  learn  more  about  them  than  ap- 
pears in  the  shape  of  the  pin  or  in  the  color 
of  the  flag  at  the  top  of  the  house.  He 
will  want  to  ask  what  kind  of  men  belong; 
what  are  their  ambitions  and  aims;  what  is 


54] 


T  HE     F  U  A  T  E  11  -M  T  Y    QUESTION 


their  rank  and  standing  in  college;  whether 
their  habits  are  clean,  sound,  wholesome, 
or  enervating  and  shady;  what  is  the  moral 
atmosphere  about  their  house;  what  sort 
of  alumni  have  been  sent  out.  He  will 
only  join  one  fraternity  and  he  wishes  to 
make  no  mistake  in  that  choice. 

The  habit  of  "rushing"  men  for  member- 
ship has  become  inexpressibly  silly.  The 
heads  of  weak  men  are  turned  by  the  social 
attentions  thrust  upon  them  and  the  stronger 
men  are  frequently  repelled  by  this  overdone 
eagerness.  One  would  suppose  the  various 
chapters  would  be  ashamed  to  exhibit  such 
anxiety  to  have  men  join  as  would  seem  to 
indicate  a  sense  of  their  own  weakness.  Let 
the  fraternities  make  themselves  worth  join- 
ing and  a  sufficient  number  of  promising 
candidates  to  fill  all  the  lists  will  be  forth- 
coming! Let  any  student  make  himself 
worth  having  and  the  door  will  be  open  into 
a  desirable  house  whenever  he  is  ready  to 
enter  it. 

It  would  be  well  if  each  student  made 
his  fraternity  experience  preparatory  to  the 
larger  social  status  into  which  he  will  enter 
as  a  mature  man  —  a  status  where  the  narrow 


[55 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


exclusiveness  of  the  snob  finds  the  door 
shut  in  its  face  by  men  of  sense.  If  he  has 
really  gained  a  genuinely  social  spirit,  he 
will  be  better  able  to  take  his  place  in  the 
business  world  as  one  ready  to  aid  in  build- 
ing it  upon  the  basis  of  honor,  integrity 
and  mutual  consideration.  If  he  has  rightly 
learned  the  lessons  of  fraternity  life  he  ought 
to  be  a  better  citizen,  ready  to  work  in  har- 
mony with  men  who  are  bent  upon  making 
the  State  an  organized  expression  of  wise 
and  just  principles.  He  ought  to  be  fitted 
to  be  a  better  churchman,  making  that  insti- 
tution a  worthy  expression  of  the  organized 
spirit  of  reverence  toward  God,  of  fellowship 
with  men,  and  of  helpfulness  for  all  good 
causes.  And  he  will  best  attain  all  these 
high  aims  if,  in  the  supreme  relationship  of 
his  life,  his  own  soul  is  knit  with  that  "friend 
that  sticketh  closer  than  a  brother."  The 
Master  of  men  came  to  found  a  fraternal 
kingdom  of  which  there  shall  be  no  end, 
and  in  that  kingdom  every  man  of  fraternal 
spirit  should  have  standing, 


5Q 


IV 

THE  RELIGION  OF  A 
COLLEGE  MAN 


..^ 


IV 

THE    RELIGION    OF    A    COLLEGE    MAIN 


THE  leading  notes  in  the  religious  life 
of  a  student  will  naturally  be  intel- 
lectual and  ethical.  The  mind  is 
feeling  its  way  out  among  the  immensities 
which  have  come  into  view  as  childhood  is 
left  behind.  It  is  seeking  to  know  things 
as  they  are,  learnmg  how  to  bear  itself  in 
thought  toward  the  natural  and  the  super- 
natural, the  earthly  and  the  heavenly,  the 
present  and  the  future.  It  is  no  longer 
content  with  a  child's  faith  received  on  the 
word  of  another;  it  has  not  yet  found  the 
repose  of  tried  and  mature  conviction.  It 
is  in  process  of  shaping  its  beliefs  about 
God,  about  the  world,  about  the  Bible, 
about  prayer,  about  a  future  life.  The  col- 
lege man  is  taken  out-of-doors  intellectually 
where  the  walls  are  all  down,  and  his  relig- 
ious life,  like  the  other  sections  of  his  nature. 


50 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


will  naturally  show  signs  of  restlessness. 
"The  religion  of  youth  is  commonly  a  relig- 
ion of  rationaHsm  —  the  intellectual  life 
is  just  starting  on  its  long  journey  in  all  the 
exhilaration  and  freshness  of  the  morn- 
ing/' 

The  ethical  note  in  the  college  man's 
religion  will  also  be  clear  and  strong.  Young 
people  in  sound  health  are  commonly  rig- 
orous and  even  merciless  in  their  moral 
judgments.  They  are  oftentimes  undul}^ 
critical  touching  the  shortcomings  of  others. 
They  are  confused  as  to  many  of  the  moral 
sanctions  and  uncertain  as  to  what  distinc- 
tions are  essential  and  what  are  merely  con- 
ventional. They  have  a  desire  to  know  what 
is  right  and  why  it  is  right,  and  they  wish  to 
discover  the  motive  and  stimulus  which  will 
render  them  strong  in  doing  the  right.  The 
best  results  are  always  attained  by  taking 
into  account  Hues  of  interest  already  estab- 
Hshed,  rather  than  by  cutting  squarely  across 
the  grain,  and  the  most  effective  approach 
to  the  heart  of  the  student  can  be  made  by 
observing  these  two  leading  notes  in  his 
religious  life. 

I  am  confirmed  in  this  view  by  this  bit  of 

[601 


THE    RELIGION    OF    A    C  O  L  E  (i  E    M  A.  iN 

personal  experience.  For  six  years  I  lec- 
tured every  Monday  during  the  second 
semester  at  Stanford  University,  giving 
courses  on  "The  Ethics  of  Christ,"  a  study 
in  the  four  Gospels,  on  "The  Life  and  Lit- 
erature of  the  Early  Hebrews,"  a  study  in 
the  Old  Testament,  on  "Social  Ethics,"  a 
study  of  moral  values  in  the  various  relation- 
ships of  modern  life.  These  courses  were 
offered  as  any  courses  would  be.  A  full 
syllabus  was  used  and  much  collateral  read- 
ing suggested;  a  monthly  written  quiz  and 
a  final  examination  were  held;  credit  was 
given  for  work  done  as  in  any  other  depart- 
ment. The  courses  were  popular  though 
the  requirements  brought  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  failures  each  year  to  keep  the  thought 
of  a  day  of  judgment  before  the  mind  of 
the  class.  There  was  evident  throughout  a 
strong,  healthy  interest  in  the  intellectual 
problems  of  faith,  in  the  interpretation  of 
scripture,  in  the  ethical  questions  discussed, 
and  in  the  intelligent  application  of  moral 
principles  to  modern  life.  The  sight  of 
those  young  faces  and  the  reading  of  the 
papers  offered  have  helped  to  confirm  me 
in   the    view    that    the    two     characteristic 


61 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


qualities  of  the  college  man's  religion  are 
those  already  indicated. 

The  expression  of  that  religious  interest 
will  take  many  forms.  It  will  utter  itself 
in  rational  worship.  The  clear-headed  stu- 
dent will  not  continue  to  do  things  which 
seem  to  him  meaningless  or  useless.  There 
are  church  services  in  which  he  will  refuse 
to  participate,  but  sincere,  reverent,  and 
rational  worship  will  commend  itself  to  him 
as  a  suitable  expression  of  that  deeper  some- 
thing growing  within  his  heart.  The  upward 
look,  the  outward  reach  of  a  higher  aspira- 
tion, the  need  of  a  hand-clasp  which  is  not 
of  earth,  all  these  appeal  to  him!  Let  the 
music,  the  lessons,  the  prayers,  and  the 
atmosphere  of  the  church  be  made  a  true, 
good,  and  beautiful  expression  of  intelli- 
gent worship  and  the  thoughtful  student 
will  rejoice  in  the  aid  it  gives  him  in  work- 
ing out  his  problems. 

The  words  of  Thomas  Carlyle  addressed 
to  the  students  in  the  University  of  Edin- 
burgh are  in  point:  "No  nation  that  did  not 
contemplate  this  wonderful  universe  with 
an  awe-stricken  and  reverential  feeling  that 
there   is   an   omnipotent,    all-wise,  and   all- 


62 


THE    RELIGION    OF     A     COLLEGE    xM  A  N 

virtuous  Being  superintending  all  men  and 
all  the  interests  in  it  —  no  such  nation  has 
ever  done  much  nor  has  any  man  who  has 
forgotten  God."  In  much  blunter  fashion 
the  Bible  says,  "The  wicked  shall  be  turned 
into  hell,  and  all  the  nations  that  forget 
God."  The  word  "hell"  can  be  spelled 
with  four  letters,  but  to  spell  that  for  which 
it  stands,  the  moral  failure,  the  personal 
disappointment,  the  pain,  and  the  distress 
of  spiritual  defeat,  the  bitter  regret  and 
remorse  over  years  wasted  by  turning  away 
from  the  Highest,  would  require  all  the 
letters  of  the  alphabet  and  the  sum  total  of 
human  experience.  In  order  to  do  justly 
and  to  love  mercy,  we  need  to  stand  humbly 
before  God  as  the  one  entitled  to  our  supreme 
and  final  allegiance.  Where  all  this  is  made 
plain  in  a  provision  for  worship  which  is 
rational,  beautiful,  and  helpful,  the  college 
man  will  find  in  it  a  natural  expression  for 
his  religious  life. 

The  religious  interest  will  also  express 
itself  in  the  study  of  religious  truth.  Courses 
in  ethics,  and  in  philosophy  where  it  relates 
to  life  and  is  not  all  clouds  and  mist;  courses 
in  the  Hebrew  and  other  sacred  literatures; 

[63  1 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


courses  in  the  history  of  religion  and  in 
comparative  rehgion,  may  all  be  made  gen- 
uinely spiritual  exercises.  The  students  are 
aided  by  such  work  in  knowing  that  truth 
which  sets  mind  and  heart  free  from  what- 
ever hinders  growth  and  usefulness. 

Still  more  directly,  the  courses  of  Bible 
study  offered  through  the  Christian  associa- 
tions in  our  universities  become  wholesome 
expressions  of  religious  interest.  The  his- 
tory and  literature  of  the  Hebrews,  the  life 
of  Christ,  the  story  of  the  early  Church, 
studied  with  the  system,  the  thoroughness, 
and  the  fearlessness  found  in  other  lines  of 
investigation,  afford  a  genuine  ministry  to 
the  spiritual  life.  Many  students  who  lose 
their  Christian  faith  in  the  colleges  suffer 
this  loss  because  the  mind  has  gone  ahead 
in  science,  in  philosophy,  and  in  history, 
but  has  lagged  back  in  religion.  It  has  been 
belated  in  the  childish  conceptions  gained 
in  early  life.  Such  students  sometimes  throw 
away  their  Christian  faith  and  habits,  and 
then  wonder  that  the  rest  of  us  are  so  stupid 
and  credulous.  As  a  matter  of  fact  they 
have  simply  failed  to  make  the  advance  and 
readjustment    which    serious    and    growing 


64 


THE     RELIGION     OF     A     COLLEGE     MAN 

minds  habitually  make  on  their  way  from 
childhood  to  maturity.  The  thorough  study 
of  religious  truth,  then,  as  an  aid  to  a  rational 
restatement  of  one's  personal  faith,  becomes 
another  worthy  expression  of  religious  life 
and  a  useful  source  of  culture  for  the  spir- 
itual nature. 

The  religious  life  of  the  student  will  also 
utter  itself  in  a  personal  quest  for  righteous- 
ness. No  life  ever  comes  to  have  that  which 
the  world  really  trusts  and  values  until  it 
can  say  in  its  whole  purpose,  "I  do  these 
certain  things  not  because  they  are  easy  or 
common  or  funny  or  politic;  I  do  them  because 
they  are  right."  If  religion  is  to  enter  into 
its  own  in  any  educational  institution  it 
will  be  necessary  to  have  a  great  deal  more 
downright  honesty  in  college  life  than  there 
is  in  many  institutions  of  learning  at  this 
time.  The  sneer  that  "in  college  and  in 
the  custom  house"  it  is  all  right  to  lie  and  to 
cheat  if  one  can  do  it  without  being  caught, 
has  had  much  to  justify  it.  The  student 
w^ho  asks  to  be  excused  from  a  college  en- 
gagement because  he  is  too  sick  to  work, 
but  who  will  go  to  a  ball  and  dance  every 
number  on    the  program,  or   to    a   football 


THE    CAP    A?JD    GOWN 


game  and  yell  until  his  throat  is  raw,  is 
simply  a  liar!  The  student  who  copies 
from  another's  examination  paper  and  signs 
his  name  to  it  as  though  it  were  his  own, 
is  a  cheat  and  a  forger.  The  man  who  steals 
spoons  from  some  hotel  or  restaurant  in  the 
town  for  his  fraternity  table  is  not  funny; 
he  is  simply  a  thief  and  an  outlaw!  The 
student  who  spends  on  vice  or  dissipation, 
money  furnished  by  his  father  for  term  bills, 
entering  them  up  in  his  financial  statement 
as  "sundries"  or  what  not,  is  a  whelp  and 
a  cad,  no  matter  how  good  looking  he  is  or 
how  well  his  dress  suit  fits  him!  Dirt  is 
dirt  no  matter  how  we  may  adorn  it  with 
lace;  a  lie  is  a  lie,  and  theft  is  theft,  no 
matter  how  they  are  smoothed  over  with 
fine  words!  There  ought  to  be  in  all  college 
life  rigid,  unsympathetic  honesty,  like  that 
of  the  bank  or  the  counting-room.  The 
perpetual  effort  after  personal  righteousness 
should  stand  as  an  abiding  expression  of 
the  religious  life. 

The  genuinely  religious  spirit  will  show 
itself  in  mutual  helpfulness.  The  Chris- 
tian service  rendered  by  students  can  best 
be  rendered  in  terms  of  student  life.     The 


66 


THE     KELlGlOiN     OF     A     COLLEGE     MAN 

readiness  to  lend  a  hand  to  some  fellow 
working  his  way  through;  the  though tf ill- 
ness and  unselfishness  shown  to  a  student 
who  is  sick;  the  organized  usefulness  of  the 
Christian  Associations  in  meeting  first-year 
students  and  aiding  them  in  those  strange 
first  days  on  the  campus;  the  ability  to  exert 
steadily  a  wholesome  influence  on  the  side 
of  what  is  right  and  wise,  without  self-con- 
sciousness or  ostentation  —  all  these  are 
forms  of  Christian  helpfulness  natural  and 
appropriate  to  student  Hfe. 

During  an  epidemic  of  typhoid  fever  at 
Stanford  University  some  years  ago  the 
students  stood  together  and  insisted  that 
every  patient  unable  to  provide  himself 
with  a  trained  nurse  should  have,  through 
their  cooperation,  the  best  care  which  med- 
ical science  could  afford.  They  gladly  gave 
up  the  senior  dance  and  other  social  enter- 
tainments and  receptions,  in  order  to  devote 
the  money  to  this  unselfish  purpose.  They 
raised  in  various  ways  among  themselves 
more  than  five  thousand  dollars  for  this 
practical  form  of  helpfulness.  "By  this 
shall  all  men  know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if 
ye  have  love  one  to  another. "    This  was  the 

[67] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


original  test  of  Christian  discipleship  pro- 
posed by  Christ  himself,  and  none  better 
has  been  found. 

The  nurture  of  the  college  man's  religion 
will  come  mainly  in  two  ways:  first,  through 
fellowship  with  a  larger  group  of  Christian 
people.  "Gather  two  or  three  together  in 
my  name,"  Christ  said,  "and  there  am  I 
in  the  midst."  He  thus  indicated  the  social 
character  of  the  religion  he  taught  and  sug- 
gested the  help  to  be  found  in  wholesome 
fellowship.  The  actual  experience  of  man- 
kind has  strongly  endorsed  his  claim. 

The  best  fellowship  will  naturally  be  found 
in  some  one  of  the  churches  of  the  community. 
The  student  will  find  there  friends  as  well 
as  worship  and  instruction;  he  may  find  also 
his  place  in  some  concrete  activity  for  the 
progress  of  the  kingdom.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  used  to  say  in  explanation  of  his 
habit  of  church  attendance,  "There  is  a 
little  plant  within  me  called  reverence  which 
needs  watering  at  least  once  a  week."  He 
might  also  have  added  that  it  needed  the 
warm  southern  exposure  of  meeting  in 
spiritual  fellowship  those  who  were  similarly 
bent  on  noble  living,  and  that  it  found  whole- 

[681 


THE  RELIGION  OK  A  COLLEGE  MAN 

some  expression  through  some  useful  partic- 
ipation in  the  activities  of  a  parish  church. 
Each  student  needs  the  church  even  more 
than  the  church  needs  him.  He  will  learn 
by  its  aid  to  more  wisely  and  more  con- 
scientiously use  the  opportunities  which  Sun- 
day offers.  The  day  of  the  Lord  ought  to 
be  a  day  of  turning  aside  to  see  the  bushes 
that  burn  with  divine  fire.  The  habit  of 
Sunday  study  is  a  mistake,  physically, 
mentally,  and  morally.  The  pioneers  who 
crossed  the  plains  in  '49,  driving  six  days  in 
the  week  and  resting  one,  reached  Cali- 
fornia ahead  of  those  who  drove  straight 
along  day  in  and  day  out,  week  in  and  week 
out;  and  the  cattle  of  the  men  who  observed 
the  method  of  a  regularly  recurring  rest 
day,  arrived  in  better  condition.  The  one 
who  said,  "Labor  six  days  and  do  all  thy 
work,"  holding  the  seventh  apart  for  rest 
and  spiritual  opportunity,  knew  something 
about  the  muscles  and  the  nerves  as  well  as 
about  the  souls  of  men.  Sunday  held  apart 
from  the  ordinary  grind  of  college  life  and 
used  as  a  time  of  privilege  for  the  higher  nature 
to  have  its  undisputed  chance  to  grow,  be- 
comes a  useful  factor  in  normal  development. 

[69] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


The  religious  life  of  the  student  will  be 
deepened  and  strengthened  most  of  all 
through  personal  fellowship  with  Jesus 
Christ.  To  know  him  who  stands  revealed 
in  brief  on  the  pages  of  the  four  gospels 
and  revealed  at  large  in  the  splendid  history 
into  which  he  has  built  himself  during  the 
last  nineteen  hundred  years,  is  to  gain 
the  utmost  help  for  character-building  that 
the  world  has  thus  far  found. 

We  know  Jesus  Christ,  not  only  by  the 
study  of  his  life  and  teachings,  but  by  shar- 
ing in  his  purpose  for  the  race  and  by  partic- 
ipation in  his  spirit.  It  is  this  that  enables 
us  to  see  life  whole,  and  to  put  ourselves 
in  the  way  of  gaining  a  fuller  measure  of 
that  life  complete.  Through  our  fellowship 
with  him  we  come  to  the  point  where  we 
see  life  in  its  deeper,  hidden  attitudes,  as 
well  as  on  its  surface;  we  see  its  upper,  un- 
seen relations  as  well  as  those  upon  its  own 
level;  we  see  its  ultimate  future,  beyond  the 
event  we  call  death,  as  well  as  the  pressing 
claims  of  the  immediate  present.  We  see  life 
whole  through  Christ  and  by  our  personal  fel- 
lowship with  him  we  are  increasingly  enabled 
to  possess  that  rounded  life  for  ourselves. 


70 


THE  RELIGION  OF  A  COLLEGE  MAN 

There  is  one  supreme  reason  why  every 
college  man  should  be  a  Christian  —  the 
final  Christianity  is  not  yet  here.  It  is 
waiting  for  the  contribution  of  thought,  of 
spiritual  experience  and  of  useful  activity, 
which  the  generation  to  which  you  belong 
is  in  a  position  to  make.  Jesus  had,  and 
still  has,  many  things  to  say,  which  the  world 
even  yet  is  not  able  to  bear.  It  is  for  each 
man,  by  personal  consecration  and  individ- 
ual effort,  to  so  weave  his  activities  into  the 
unfinished  story  of  the  world's  redemption 
as  to  aid  in  bringing  about  the  true  attitude 
toward  those  unseen  things  which  are  eternal. 

College  men  are  eager  to  make  personal 
experiment  of  other  unseen  forces.  They 
love  to  lay  bare  hidden  secrets  by  the  use 
of  the  Roentgen  ray;  they  rejoice  in  sending 
and  receiving  messages  by  wireless  teleg- 
raphy; they  cluster  around  an  experiment 
which  displays  the  mysterious  attributes 
of  that  strange  substance  called  radium; 
they  show^  themselves  eager  to  witness  the 
wonders  of  liquid  air.  They  should  be  no 
less  eager  to  know  by  genuine  personal 
experience  the  efficacy  of  prayer,  the  power 
of  faith,  the  joy  of  spiritual  renew^al  through 


THE    GAP    AND    G  O  ^^  N 


divine  grace.  They  should  be  no  less  eager 
to  send  and  receive  those  messages  which 
come  and  go  between  God  and  man,  when 
the  heavens  are  open  and  the  angels  are 
ascending  and  descending  upon  the  sons 
of  men.  You  have,  each  one  of  you,  a  clear 
responsibility  and  obligation  in  this  matter. 
Gain  for  yourself  an  intelligent  faith;  show 
to  the  world  one  more  consistent  Christian 
life;  render  to  his  cause  your  own  personal 
quota  of  competent  service,  and  in  doing 
this  you  will  not  only  be  spiritually  enriched 
yourself,  you  will  aid  in  bringing  in  that 
greater  Christianity  which  is  yet  to  be. 


72 


V 

THE  CHOICE  OF  A  LIFE-WORK 


i 


V 

THE    CHOICE    OF    A    LIFE-WORK 


THE  man  who  said,  "I  am  doing  a 
great  work,  I  cannot  come  down," 
was  laying  bricks.  But  the  bricks 
went  into  a  wall,  and  the  wall  surrounded 
the  capital  city  of  his  country  as  its  main 
defense,  and  the  city  was  Jerusalem,  the 
headquarters  of  the  Hebrew  people!  The 
moral  history  of  that  people  has  woven 
itself  into  the  story  of  the  world's  redemp- 
tion, as  has  no  other  history  on  earth.  Its 
writings  furnish  us  the  best  book  we  have: 
its  Messiah,  born  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea, 
has  become  the  world's  Saviour;  and  the 
high  claim  that  "Salvation  is  of  the  Jews," 
is  well  sustained  by  the  facts.  Simple  deeds 
are  sometimes  far-reaching  in  their  divine 
significance.  Laying  bricks  in  a  wall  which 
protected  the  city  out  of  which  came  the 
world's  Messiah,  was  surely  a  splendid  occu- 

[75] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


pation.  The  man  was  well  within  the 
facts,  when  he  cried  to  those  who  tried  to 
interrupt  him,  "I  am  doing  a  great  work, 
I  cannot  come  down." 

I  quote  these  words  as  indicating  the  sense 
of  vocation,  the  honest  pride  in  his  work, 
the  personal  appreciation  of  its  wider  mean- 
ings, the  safeguard  it  affords  against  un- 
worthy ideals,  the  means  of  culture  it  opens 
for  moral  character,  which  ought  to  be  found 
in  every  one's  attitude  toward  his  life-work. 
Alas  for  you,  if  you  cannot  all  say,  by  and 
by,  what  the  bricklayer  said! 

Some  college  men  unfortunately  allow 
themselves  to  be  driven  into  this  or  that 
occupation  by  force  of  circumstances.  They 
forget  that  college  training  ought  to  fit  us 
to  oppose  circumstances  if  need  be  and  reso- 
lutely work  out  some  splendid  purpose  in 
the  teeth  of  opposition. 

Some  college  men  drift  into  anything  that 
offers  —  they  must  do  something  to  earn 
their  bread  and  they  catch  the  nearest  way. 
This  puts  them  on  a  level  with  the  hungry 
dog  looking  for  a  bone  and  facing  in  what- 
ever direction  he  smells  meat.  Such  men 
are  opportunists  all  their  lives,  taking  what- 


76] 


THE     CHOICE     OF     A     LIFE-WORK. 

ever  offers,  even  though  on  the  face  of  it  a 
temporary  makeshift,  trusting  that  when 
one  job  is  finished  another  may  turn  up. 
They  are  Hke  so  many  fleas,  jumping  from 
job  to  job,  wherever  they  see  a  chance  for 
a  good  bite.  They  fail  to  exercise  that 
power  of  choice  and  determination  which 
ought  to  prevail  in  the  selection  of  that 
which  is  to  claim  six-sevenths  of  one's  time 
and  interest  during  all  his  working  years. 

There  is  spiritual  value  in  any  legitimate 
calling,  and  this  satisfying  return  is  open 
and  possible  to  every  college  man  bent  on 
doing  square  work.  "To  every  man  his 
work";  his  by  personal  fitness;  his  by  the 
sense  of  fulfilling  a  divine  purpose  in  select- 
ing it;  his  in  the  feeling  that  it  belongs  to 
him!  Some  men  are  called  of  God  to  the 
Christian  ministry  and  others  are  no  less 
called  of  God  to  teach  or  to  heal  or  to  build. 
God's  calls  announce  themselves  in  a  vari- 
ety of  ways.  The  shining  vision  that  came  to 
Paul  on  the  Damascus  road  or  the  mighty 
spiritual  impulse  which  visited  the  heart  of 
President  Finney  of  Oberlin  as  he  struggled 
in  the  woods  alone,  are  forms  of  the  divine 
call,  but  there  are  other  forms  equally  valid. 

[ri'] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


The  call  of  the  world's  need  for  some  special 
work  and  your  own  consciousness  of  power 
to  render  that  service  will  bring  you  a  gen- 
uine sense  of  vocation  as  you  gird  yourself 
for  it.  There  are  many  intimations  as  to 
the  place  one  should  take  and  hold,  which 
may  have  all  the  compelling  force  of  a  vision 
from  on  high. 

But  to  speak  more  closely  of  the  matter 
in  hand,  let  me  name  some  of  the  consider- 
ations which  must  enter  into  the  choice  of 
a  life-work.     I  can  only  speak  in  the  most 
general  way,  addressing  as  I  do  young  men 
of  varying  abilities  and  temperaments.     If 
one  should  discuss  the  value  or  attractive- 
ness of  any  particular  vocation,  the  personal 
element    and    the    question    of    individual 
fitness  would  instantly  come  in.  Some  general 
considerations  however  may  prove  suggestive. 
It  is  best  not  to  make  one's  decision  too 
early  or  too  rigidly.    The  average  young  man 
is   not    sufficiently    acquainted    either    with 
himself  or  with  the  vocations  to  make  his 
final  decision  during  his  last  year  in  high 
school,  or  during  his  first  year  in   college. 
One  of  the  chief  values  of  college  training  is 
that  it  discovers  the  man  to  himself.     You 


78 


THE     CHOICE    OF     A     LIFE-WOK  K 

have  scarcely  a  bowing  acquaintance  with 
yourself  when  you  only  know  yourself  as 
a  freshman  —  wait  and  meet  this  same  fel- 
low within,  as  a  sophomore,  as  a  junior,  as 
a  senior.  There  are  unsuspected  capabil- 
ities in  him  which  training  and  experience 
will  bring  out. 

Wait  also  until  you  learn  more  about  the 
vocations  themselves.  In  making  choice  of 
a  wife  it  is  well  to  become  acquainted  with 
a  number  of  young  ladies  before  you  settle 
down  to  an  exclusive  intimacy  with  one. 
There  are  other  girls  w^ho  can  look  sweet 
and  say  pleasant  things  too;  it  is  not  wise 
to  fall  so  completely  in  love  with  the  first 
dainty  bit  of  white  muslin  you  see  as  to 
exclude  other  delightful  associations.  The 
law  has  its  attractions,  so  has  medicine,  so 
has  the  ministry,  so  has  the  work  of  educa- 
tion, or  the  business  career,  or  the  work  of 
an  architect,  a  chemist,  or  a  forester.  It  is 
wise  not  to  conclude  too  early  in  life  that 
the  attractions  of  this  particular  vocation 
shut  out  all  the  rest  from  consideration. 
Look  yourself  over  and  look  the  field  over 
with  great  care  at  least  a  hundred  times 
before  making  a  final  choice.     It  will  be  a 

[791 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


sorry  thing  if  you  start  out  to  unlock  the 
door  of  your  future  with  the  wrong  key. 

Consider  the  whole  man  in  your  choice. 
It  is  not  simply  what  you  carry  home  in 
your  pocket,  as  a  result  of  your  day's  work 
and  of  all  the  days  of  work,  but  what  you 
carry  away  in  mind  and  heart  as  well;  what 
you  carry  away  in  the  gratitude  and  appre- 
ciation of  your  fellow  men;  what  you  gain 
in  the  beneficent  influence  you  may  exert 
upon  the  community  through  your  calling. 
Ten  thousand  a  year  is  a  splendid  return 
from  the  investment  of  one's  personal  abil- 
ity, but  there  are  other  returns  which  may 
be  added  to  the  figures  named  in  your  con- 
tract in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  money 
consideration  seem  the  small  end  of  it.  And 
there  are  other  returns  which  may  make  it 
seem  as  if  the  man  who  received  the  ten 
thousand  a  year  had  worked  all  his  life  for 
meager  pay.  Many  a  saloon-keeper  has 
made  ten  times  as  much  money  out  of  his 
calling  as  the  college  professor  or  the  clergy- 
man makes  out  of  his,  but  when  the  books 
are  opened,  other  books  as  well  as  the  cash 
book,  the  comparative  values  of  the  voca- 
tions will  stand  revealed. 


80 


THE     CHOICE     OF     A.     LIFE-WORK 

The  young  man  may  be  doing  some  honest 
and  useful  work,  but  without  the  sense  of 
joy  or  pride  in  it.  In  such  event  it  fails  to 
render  him  back  a  full  return.  The  cul- 
ture of  one's  own  best  life  must  come  with 
his  ordinary  work  or  else  the  man  is  sacri- 
ficed to  the  profession.  We  are  not  here 
to  be  effective  machines  for  grinding  out 
sermons  or  briefs,  operations  or  lectures, 
bargains  or  manufactured  products:  we  are 
here  to  be  men,  strong,  fine,  aspiring,  and 
useful  men.  The  whole  man  therefore  must 
be  considered,  his  body,  his  brain,  his  heart, 
and  his  soul,  as  well  as  his  purse  when  you 
make  selection  of  his  life-work.  What  you 
make  out  of  your  vocation  is  an  important 
question,  but  what  it  makes  out  of  you  is 
tenfold  more  important! 

Make  up  your  mind  that  in  the  long  run 
your  work  will  be  estimated  by  its  genuine 
utility.  Success  comes  not  by  luck,  but  by 
law.  The  apparent  exceptions,  like  four- 
leaf  clovers,  are  not  sufficiently  numerous 
to  disturb  the  principle.  It  is  three-leaf 
clover  that  feeds  the  cows  and  fills  the  hay- 
mows. It  is  ordinary  industry,  fidelity, 
persistence,  and  efficiency  that  bring  the  larg- 

[811 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


est  measure  of  abiding  success:  Your  work 
will  be  estimated  by  its  utility  in  satisfying 
human  need. 

This  principle  well  understood,  thoroughly 
believed,  and  constantly  acted  upon,  will  be 
of  untold  value  to  you.  Canfield  says  to 
the  young  men  at  Columbia,  "Measure  your 
daily  work  by  the  efficiency  and  complete- 
ness with  which  it  meets  the  needs  of  your 
fellow  men."  You  must  measure  it  thus, 
for  that  is  the  way  the  world  will  estimate 
it.  You  will  not  be  able  to  live  by  your  wits; 
you  must  live  by  your  work  and  your  worth. 
Therefore,  in  making  selection,  consider 
carefully  the  usefulness  of  the  work  you 
choose,  for  men  are  like  medicines,  when  they 
show  themselves  useful,  they  will  be  used. 

The  idea  that  success  comes  by  luck  or 
pull,  or  chance,  is  a  fool's  idea.  Some  such 
instances  occur,  but  they  are  not  even  so 
common  as  four-leaf  clover  —  the  man  who 
starts  out  in  life  depending  upon  them  is 
more  foolish  than  the  farmer  who  would 
rely  upon  four-leaf  clover  for  his  hay  crop. 
And  you  will  find  as  you  come  to  live  with 
him  on  close  terms  that  the  world  is  a  very 
sagacious  old  fellow  in  his  estimate  of  values. 

[82  1 


THE    CHOICE    O  F    A    LIFE-WORK 

He  has  wonderful  ability  in  discerning  the 
real  thing  and  in  putting  away  shoddy. 
You  cannot  sell  him  gold  bricks  straight 
along  —  if  now  and  then  one  is  palmed  off 
on  the  unwary,  still  they  never  become  a 
staple  quoted  in  the  market  reports.  Good 
clay  bricks  in  the  long  run  are  more  profit- 
able. Your  work  will  be  estimated,  and 
estimated  accurately,  by  its  utility  in  satis- 
fying genuine  human  need.  The  intelli- 
gent observance  of  this  principle  in  making 
your  selection  will  introduce  that  spirit  of 
service  which  ennobles  the  whole  effort. 

May  your  choice  of  vocation  be  so  wise 
and  right  that  you  will  be  content  to  have  it 
dominate  all  minor  matters  in  your  life! 
Horace  Bushnell  used  to  speak  to  Yale  men 
about  "the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affec- 
tion." The  love  for  a  pure  woman  making 
all  impurity  hateful  and  disgusting;  the  love 
for  some  man  of  integrity  making  all  lying 
and  dishonesty  seem  foul  and  mean;  the  love 
for  God  making  all  wrong-doing  repulsive! 
So  there  comes  into  the  life,  by  the  right 
choice  of  vocation,  a  supreme  interest  and 
delight  in  one's  work,  which  drives  out  all 
the    low,    cheap,    mean    things    that    would 

183  1 


THE    GAP    AND    GO  W  N 


hinder  it.  "I  am  doing  a  great  work,"  the 
man  cries;  "I  am  content  to  be  absorbed  in 
it  and  it  is  morally  impossible  for  me  to  come 
down  to  the  trivial  or  the  base." 

The  famous  Vienna  surgeon,  Dr.  Lorenz, 
at  a  banquet  during  his  visit  to  this  country, 
drank  nothing  but  water.  The  man  who 
sat  next  him  at  table,  knowing  the  love  which 
so  many  Germans  have  for  wine  and  beer, 
asked  the  doctor  if  he  were  a  teetotaler. 
The  reply  was:  "I  do  not  know  that  I  could 
be  called  that;  I  am  not  in  any  sense  a  tem- 
perance agitator.  But  I  am  a  surgeon  and 
must  keep  my  brain  clear,  my  nerves  steady, 
my  muscles  tense."  Here  spoke  the  voice 
of  science  on  one  of  its  higher  levels  as  to 
the  effect  of  stimulants!  Here  spoke  also 
the  voice  of  one  who  finds  splendid  moral 
culture  in  his  devotion  to  his  life-work. 
"I  am  doing  a  great  work,  known  on  two 
continents  and  beyond,"  he  seemed  to  say; 
"therefore  I  cannot,  for  the  sake  of  an  abnor- 
mal sensation,  come  down  to  tickle  my  stom- 
ach, or  tamper  with  my  nerves  or  drug  my 
brain  by  the  use  of  stimulants." 

Make  such  a  selection  of  your  life-work  as 
will  enable   you   to   regard   it   as   the   main 


84 


THE    CHOICE    OF    A    L  I  F  E  -  W  O  11  K 

expression  of  your  spiritual  life.  Every 
man,  no  matter  what  the  special  form  of 
his  employment  may  be,  can  so  relate  him- 
self to  it  and  so  strive  to  relate  it  and  the 
results  which  flow  from  it,  to  the  life  of  the 
community  as  to  make  his  ordinary  work 
the  main  utterance  of  his  deeper  nature. 
There  will  be  the  expression  of  his  spirit- 
uality in  worship,  in  directly  religious  activ- 
ity, in  other  forms  of  effort,  but  the  main 
expression  should  lie  in  that  useful  work 
which  claims  six-sevenths  of  his  time  and 
strength. 

"Give  us  this  day  our  daily  bread,"  the 
Master  said  in  the  model  prayer.  It  ought 
to  be  the  daily  utterance  of  every  serious 
man's  life.  Utter  it  with  your  lips  alone 
and  your  body  will  starve  to  death!  Utter 
it  with  hands  and  brain  alone,  and  your 
soul  will  famish!  But  utter  it  with  your 
entire  nature,  hands,  brain,  heart,  and 
soul,  addressing  themselves  to  God,  to  the 
resources  God  has  placed  at  your  call,  and  to 
the  need  of  the  community  for  the  service 
you  can  render,  and  then  your  prayer  will 
bring  the  bread  which  feeds  the  total  nature 
up   to   its   full   strength!     Industry,    intelli- 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


gence  and  moral  purpose,  cooperating  with 
the  divine  bounty  and  with  the  needs  of 
men,  will  work  out  the  highest  type  of  char- 
acter and  make  one's  daily  employment 
sacramental  in  its  influence  upon  his  own 
heart  and  upon  the  lives  of  others. 

I  have  not  spoken  of  the  claims  of  the 
various  vocations,  but  let  me  utter  one  last 
word,  as  strong  as  I  can  make  it,  for  the 
Christian  ministry.  There  are  splendid 
rewards  and  honors  to  be  won  today  at  the 
bar,  in  medicine,  in  the  work  of  education, 
in  commerce,  in  manufacture,  in  engineering. 
Into  all  these  callings  strong  and  useful 
men  are  going  in  such  numbers  that  there 
is  no  cry  of  need  coming  back.  It  is  not 
so  in  the  ministry.  There  is  in  every  branch 
of  the  Church  and  in  all  the  states  of  the 
Union,  a  loud  and  a  sore  cry  for  young  men 
of  sound  health,  good  sense,  trained  intelli- 
gence, social  sympathy,  and  genuine  charac- 
ter, to  enter  the  ministry  and  furnish  the 
moral  and  spiritual  leadership  the  country 
craves.  Like  the  man  of  Macedonia  the 
modern  pulpit  stands  up  and  cries,  "Come 
over  into  Macedonia,  and  help  us." 

If  I  can  read  my  Church  history  aright 

[861 


THE    CHOICE    OF    A    LIFE-WOl;K 

there  never  was  a  time  when  the  opportu- 
nities and  the  rewards  of  the  ministry  were 
so  great.  A  man  will  earn  less  money  in 
the  ministry  than  the  same  degree  of  ability 
would  command  in  other  fields  of  labor, 
though  congregations,  especially  in  cities, 
were  never  so  generous  with  their  pastors 
as  now.  What  he  carries  away  in  his 
purse,  however,  is  only  one  of  many  rewards 
the  vocation  brings.  In  the  Church  today 
there  is  liberty  of  thought;  in  some  branch 
of  it  every  man  desiring  to  aid  his  fellows  in 
doing  justly,  in  loving  mercy  and  in  walk- 
ing humbly  with  God,  can  find  a  hearty 
welcome  and  a  place  to  work.  There  is  a 
wide-spread  hunger  on  the  part  of  the  people 
for  a  competent  and  helpful  interpretation 
of  this  literature  in  the  Bible.  There  is  a 
call  for  men  who  can  intelligently  and  effect- 
ively apply  Christian  principles  to  modern 
conditions  and  problems.  There  is  an 
abiding  demand  for  men  who  can  bring  the 
eternal  verities  of  the  Spirit  before  their  con- 
gregations with  power,  and  offer  strength, 
cheer,  courage,  and  comfort  to  those  who 
come  up  weary  and  heavy-laden  out  of  the 
work  of  the  week. 


87 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


And  in  return  for  this  highest  form  of  ser- 
vice any  one  can  hope  to  render  to  his  fel- 
lows, there  is  a  mighty  tide  of  appreciation 
and  gratitude  waiting  to  flow  in  upon  the 
heart  of  the  man  who  has  been  doing  genuine, 
helpful  service  as  a  minister  of  Jesus  Christ. 
The  field  is  wide,  the  ewards  are  rich  and 
perpetual,  the  opportunities  are  like  wide- 
open  and  effectual  doors,  but  the  strong, 
wise,  devoted  laborers  are  all  too  few!  You 
cannot  anywhere  on  earth  invest  your  life 
with  more  satisfaction  to  yourself,  with  a 
greater  sense  of  serviceableness  to  your 
brother  men,  with  a  warmer  sense  of  God's 
own  approving  favor,  than  in  the  ministry 
of  the  modern  Church. 

In  selecting  your  life-work,  you  wish  to 
consider  the  whole  man,  to  estimate  pos- 
sible success  by  the  utility  of  the  service 
rendered,  to  have  a  vocation  to  which  all 
minor  interests  shall  bow  in  glad  obedience, 
and  to  make  it  the  supreme  expression  of 
your  spiritual  life!  Does  any  work  on  earth 
so  meet  these  requirements  as  does  the  Chris- 
tian ministry?  In  your  individual  case, 
if  the  call  of  God,  the  recognized  needs  of 
the  world,  and  the  sense  of  spiritual  obliga- 


88] 


THE    CHOICE    OF    A    L  1  F  E  -  W  O  II  K 

tion  should  bear  you  into  that  vocation,  you 
would  forever  thank  him  that  among  all 
the  good  things  in  life  he  had  given  you  the 
best!  You  would  gladly  put  away  all  the 
allurements  which  might  defeat  your  spirit- 
ual effectiveness!  You  would  say,  to  all 
beholders,  by  sincere  and  whole-hearted  de- 
votion to  your  calling,  *'I  am  doing  a  great 
work;  I  cannot  come  down." 


89 


VI 


MORAL    VENTURES 


VI 

MORAL   VENTURES 


THE  old  saw,  "Nothing  venture,  noth- 
ing have,"  is  true  in  mining;  the 
miner  who  is  unwilling  to  risk  his 
money  on  a  hole  in  the  ground  without 
knowing  what  may  lie  at  the  other  end  of  it 
never  grows  rich.  It  is  true  in  farming,  for 
the  man  who  is  not  willing  to  throw  his  seed 
wheat  away  on  an  uncertainty  will  never 
reap  a  harvest.  It  is  true  in  business,  for  if 
no  man  had  been  willing  to  invest  a  dollar 
until  he  had  something  as  sure  as  a  govern- 
ment bond,  we  would  not  have  reached  first 
base  yet  in  our  commercial  development. 
It  is  true  in  all  the  finer  forms  of  outdoor 
sport.  The  plaintive  cry  goes  up  now  and 
then  from  certain  quarters  against  the  idea 
of  having  any  element  of  risk  or  danger  in 
college  athletics  —  such  people  had  better 
stick  to  ping-pong  or  croquet,  leaving  the 

[931 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


other  games  to  those  of  us  who  still  have  a 
sprinkling  of  red  corpuscles  in  our  veins. 
Nothing  venture,  nothing  have! 

The  same  principle  holds  on  the  higher 
levels  of  moral  life,  for  in  all  the  more  heroic 
forms  of  duty  there  is  an  element  of  risk. 
There  are  those  who  hold  that  right  is  noth- 
ing more  than  expediency  and  that  wrong 
is  simply  a  bad  blunder.  They  can  make 
quite  a  showing  on  paper.  "Honesty  is 
the  best  policy"  in  the  long  run,  but  it  is  a 
great  deal  more  than  that.  Genuine  hon- 
esty, financial,  physical,  intellectual,  moral, 
the  sort  of  honesty  that  adds  two  and  two 
and  gets  four  every  time  with  never  a  frac- 
tion more  nor  less,  is  something  more  than 
good  policy.  It  reaches  down  and  takes 
hold  of  things  fundamental  in  a  way  that 
mere  policy  never  does,  never  can.  And  the 
fact  stands  that  the  saints  and  the  seers, 
the  heroes  and  the  martyrs,  the  poets  and 
the  singers  who  have  furnished  inspiration 
and  leadership,  who  have  kindled  the  fire 
of  moral  passion  in  other  breasts  because  it 
burned  hot  in  their  own,  have  been  men  to 
whom  right  was  more  than  good  policy. 
The  moral  leaders  have  been  men  who  were 


94 


MORAL     VENTURES 


ready  to  take  risks  in  doing  certain  things 
because  they  believed  those  things  to  be 
right. 

There  is  a  certain  short  story  which 
brings  this  point  out  in  telHng  fashion. 
There  was  a  king  who  Hved  "somewhere 
east  of  Suez,  where  there  ain't  no  Ten  Com- 
mandments and  the  best  is  Hke  the  worst." 
He  was  the  fortunate  possessor  of  a  big  stick 
and  he  wielded  it  with  striking  success.  To 
celebrate  one  of  his  notable  victories  he 
caused  to  be  made  a  huge,  gold-plated  im- 
age ninety  feet  high  and  eighteen  feet  broad. 
He  set  it  up  out  on  the  campus  and  called 
upon  the  people  of  his  realm  to  bow  down 
and  worship  it.  He  coupled  that  invita- 
tion with  the  stimulating  announcement 
that  if  any  man  refused  he  would  be  cast 
into  a  furnace  of  fire. 

Now  with  that  alternative  in  plain  sight, 
the  popular,  the  politic,  the  expedient  thing 
was  to  get  down  and  worship  the  image,  or 
at  least  to  go  through  the  form.  "In  Rome 
you  must  do  as  the  Romans  do"  —  so  the 
moral  jelly-fish  who  have  never  reached 
the  vertebrate  level  are  ever  saying.  With  a 
golden  image  ninety  feet  high  and  eighteen 


95] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


feet  broad,  with  the  king  leading  off  in  the 
worship  and  all  his  captains  and  counselors, 
his  rulers  and  his  governors  backing  him 
up,  what  could  any  ordinary  man  do  but 
conform ! 

But  there  in  that  same  country  east  of 
Suez  there  were  three  young  fellows  who 
knew  about  the  Ten  Commandments.  They 
had  learned  them  "by  heart"  as  we  say, 
which  means  much  more  than  the  mere  abil- 
ity to  reel  them  off  the  tongue  as  one  might 
repeat  the  multiplication  table.  It  was  a 
matter  of  principle  with  them  not  to  worship 
images  of  any  sort.  When  the  multitude 
flopped  down  on  its  knees  before  the  Thing 
that  was  ninety  feet  high  the  three  young 
men  stood  erect. 

Their  defiant  action  was  promptly  reported 
to  the  king,  and  with  all  the  fury  of  an  ori- 
ental despot  he  caused  them  to  be  brought 
before  him  and  again  threatened  with  the 
fiery  furnace.  Then  there  came  from  the 
lips  of  uncalculating  youth  those  ringing 
words  of  moral  defiance  which  cause  the 
heart  of  every  man  under  forty  to  leap, 
"Our  God  whom  w^e  serve  is  able  to  deliver 
us    from    the    fiery    furnace!     We    believe 


96 


M  O  l\  A  L     V  K  N  T  U  W  E  S 


that  he  will  deliver  us  out  of  thine  hand,  O 
king!  But  if  not''  —  there  is  the  nub  of 
the  statement  and  there  I  want  to  rest  my 
whole  weight  in  this  address  —  "but  if  not, 
be  it  known  unto  thee,  O  king,  we  will  not 
serve  thy  gods!"  No  matter  what  might 
come,  they  stood  ready  to  take  the  risk  of 
obedience  to  the  highest  they  saw. 

The  men  who  are  really  putting  the  world 
ahead  in  its  business  methods  and  in  its 
civic  affairs,  in  the  quality  of  the  ideals 
which  dominate  the  work  of  education  and 
in  the  standards  which  obtain  in  society 
at  large,  are  not  men  who  are  always  mak- 
ing shrewd  calculations  as  to  what  will 
be  most  expedient.  These  royal  leaders 
of  the  race  sitting  upon  their  respective 
thrones  of  spiritual  usefulness  endeavor  to 
shape  means  to  ends.  They  indulge  in  no 
sort  of  bluster  or  heroics.  They  seek  as 
far  as  may  be  to  avoid  open  disaster.  They 
say  frankly,  "We  believe  that  this  course 
of  action  will  bring  us  out  all  right,  vindica- 
ting itself  here  and  now,  hut  if  not,''  —  even 
though  personal  loss,  popular  opposition  and 
apparent  defeat  seem  to  be  the  immedi- 
ate result  —  "we  will  stand  for  the  right  as 


[97 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


we  see  the  right."  These  men  ready  to  take 
risks  in  doing  their  duty  in  the  face  of  heavy 
odds,  ready  to  make  the  moral  venture  of 
fidehty  to  the  highest  ideals  in  sight,  are 
the  only  men  who  are  really  worth  while. 

Yonder  on  the  coast  at  a  life-saving  sta- 
tion a  group  of  determined  men  see  a  wreck 
off  shore.  They  know  all  about  the  peril 
of  the  sea;  it  has  been  their  major  study  for 
years.  They  quietly  put  on  their  storm 
clothes  and  their  helmets,  equipping  them- 
selves with  all  those  appliances  which  experi- 
ence has  indicated  as  having  value.  They 
push  their  life-boat  through  the  angry  surf 
and  are  off.  "We  hope  to  bring  those  im- 
periled passengers  and  sailors  safe  to  land 
and  to  get  back  ourselves,"  they  say;  "but, 
if  not,  we  go  just  the  same.     It  is  our  duty." 

Here  in  the  crowded  city  a  fireman  climbs 
up  the  longest  ladder  available  on  the  side 
of  a  burning  building.  Through  a  window 
on  the  fourth  floor  he  catches  a  glimpse  of 
the  body  of  a  woman  who  has  been  over- 
come by  heat  and  smoke.  He  has  been 
thoroughly  trained  by  years  of  stern  experi- 
ence with  city  fires.  He  knows  that  the  floor 
of   that   room  may    drop  at    any  moment. 


98 


ORAL     V  E  N  T  LUES 


that,  if  he  ventures  in,  he,  too,  may  be  over- 
come by  heat  and  smoke;  that  if  he  leaves 
his  ladder  for  one  moment  it  may  mean  cer- 
tain death.  In  the  face  of  everything  he 
climbs  right  in  to  rescue  the  woman.  "I 
hope  to  get  out  all  right,"  he  says;  "but  if 
not,  here  goes  just  the  same.  It's  my  duty." 
Now  the  world  will  never  be  saved  from 
its  sin  and  shame  until  the  rest  of  us  who 
wear  no  uniforms  of  any  kind  are  ready  for 
that  same  sort  of  moral  venture  in  the  realms 
of  business  and  politics,  in  educational  and 
in  social  life.  Here  and  there  are  small 
groups  of  men  entering  actively  into  the 
political  life  of  the  city,  the  state,  the  nation, 
ready  to  know  machine  politicians  from  the 
inside  rather  than  from  the  outside,  willing 
to  get  down  and  be  muddied  with  their 
mud,  in  order  that  better  men  and  better 
methods  may  prevail.  Here  and  there  are 
small  groups  of  men  who  know  that  some  of 
the  methods  in  the  world  of  business  are 
fatal  to  that  larger  prosperity  in  which  all 
classes  may  equitably  share  and  fatal  to 
the  human  values  at  stake.  They  are  not 
sitting  on  the  bleachers  idly  criticizing  the 
players  —  they  are  in  the  game,  but  intent 

[991 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


upon  playing  it  according  to  finer  rules  and 
nobler  methods.  They  are  standing  often- 
times at  great  cost  to  themselves  for  ideals 
which  were  not  born  in  the  counting-room, 
which  do  not  receive  their  most  accurate 
appraisement  from  the  entries  in  the  cash- 
book.  These  groups  of  idealists  are  not 
large  as  yet,  but  they  are  significant  —  they 
are  the  hope  of  the  nation.  They  are  the 
saving  remnant  in  our  modern  Israel. 

Only  as  men  are  ready  to  lash  themselves 
like  Ulysses  of  old  to  those  enduring  prin- 
ciples of  righteousness  and  honor  which 
stand  erect  like  masts  and  sail  on,  no  matter 
what  alluring  sirens  of  temporary  expedi- 
ency sing  along  the  course,  shall  we  make 
moral  headway  or  at  last  make  port. 

You  have  read  the  history  of  those  brave 
Dutchmen  at  the  siege  of  Ley  den.  They 
were  besieged  by  the  powerful  army  of 
Spain.  They  were  fighting  for  the  safety 
of  their  city,  for  the  freedom  of  the  Nether- 
lands, and  for  those  principles  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty  which  they  held  dear.  Un- 
able to  carry  the  place  by  assault  the  Span- 
iards undertook  to  starve  the  Dutchmen 
out.     The    Spanish    commander    demanded 


100] 


M  O  U  \  L     VENTURES 


the  surrender  of  the  place  coupled  with  the 
threat  that  if  his  demand  were  refused  he 
would  starve  them  all  to  death,  men,  women, 
and  children. 

The  sturdy  Hollanders  sent  back  this 
reply  —  "Tell  the  Spanish  commander  we 
w  ill  eat  our  left  arms  first  and  fight  on  with 
the  right."  But  as  the  siege  went  on  some 
of  the  less  heroic  souls  finally  suggested  to 
the  governor  that  the  food  supply  was  very 
low^  and  that  it  might  be  well  to  make  some 
compromise.  "Never,"  he  cried;  "eat  me 
first,  but  do  not  surrender."  They  held 
on  until  finally  in  their  desperation  a  few  of 
them  stole  out  at  night  and  opened  the  dikes 
to  let  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  It  might  mean 
death  to  them,  but  it  would  also  mean  death 
to  their  enemies.  In  the  confusion  which 
ensued  when  the  enemy's  camp  was  flooded, 
the  Dutchmen  had  their  opportunity  — 
they  rushed  forth  and  from  apparent  defeat 
wrested  a  splendid  victory.  The  great  vic- 
tories by  land  or  by  sea,  in  the  stirring  times 
of  war  on  in  the  slower,  harder  battles  of 
peace,  are  won  by  men  who  stand  ready  for 
that  sort  of  moral  venture. 

The  people  of  any  state  have  the  right  — 


[101 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


they  have  paid  for  it  in  honest  money  —  to 
look  to  the  university  not  only  for  mental 
insight  and  efficiency,  but  for  moral  energy 
and  spiritual  passion.  If  the  university  is 
worthy  to  bear  that  high  name  it  ought  to 
be  a  place  where  moral  idealism  can  breathe 
and  grow  as  upon  its  native  heath.  This  is 
thoroughly  understood  by  all  those  who  know 
the  full  meaning  of  "higher  education." 

If  any  of  you  have  come  up  to  this  place 
of  privilege  merely  with  the  idea  of  being 
trained  so  that  you  can  more  successfully 
compete  with  your  fellows  in  feathering 
your  own  nests,  making  them  thick  and  warm 
and  soft  as  untrained  men  might  be  unable 
to  do,  you  would  better  go  home.  If  your 
associates  knew  that  fact  they  would  be 
ashamed  of  you.  The  members  of  the  fac- 
ulty, as  soon  as  they  discover  that  spirit  in 
you,  are  ashamed  of  you.  The  people  of 
the  state  would  be  ashamed  of  you  did  they 
know  that  you  were  here  using  the  privi- 
leges they  have  provided  in  that  mood. 
You  are  here  to  be  made  ready  and  compe- 
tent to  take  more  steadily  and  more  largely 
the  risks  which  public  service  involves. 

Hundreds  of  people,  many  of  them  good 

[  10,^2  1 


MORAL     VENTURES 


and  respectable  people  too,  confess  them- 
selves unable  to  stand  up  against  the  spirit 
of  self-indulgence,  the  worship  of  luxury, 
the  fierce  pursuit  of  things  material  which 
are  today  dwarfing  the  souls  of  men  in  count- 
less homes.  All  the  more  honor  to  those 
university  men  and  w^omen  who  stand  out 
and  bear  witness  to  their  firm  confidence  in 
the  beauty  of  simplicity,  in  the  value  of 
sincerity  of  soul,  in  the  vital  importance  of 
directing  the  ultimate  aspirations  to  things 
spiritual ! 

Hundreds  of  men  in  commercial  and  polit- 
ical life  are  hanging  out  the  flag  of  distress. 
**We  are  caught  in  a  system,"  they  say. 
"We  cannot  help  ourselves.  We  must  play 
the  game  in  the  same  ruthless  way  our  com- 
petitors are  playing  it."  All  the  more  honor 
to  those  men  who  are  ready  to  face  defeat 
if  need  be,  that  they  may  stand  clearly  for 
unflinching  integrity,  for  genuine  considera- 
tion for  the  higher  interests  involved  in 
industry,  and  for  all  those  sacred  ideals 
which  ought  to  shine  in  the  secular  sky  every 
day  in  the  week  as  well  as  through  the 
stained  glass  windows  on  the  first  day. 

In  the  face  of  the  insistent  demand   for 


103 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


moral  leadership  it  would  be  a  downright 
shame  if  the  university  men  should  be  found 
skulking  in  the  rear,  choosing  the  lower 
because  it  is  the  easier  and  in  their  weak 
attempts  at  moral  advance  following  the 
line  of  least  resistance.  The  persistent  re- 
fusal of  the  call  to  high  and  responsible 
service  becomes  in  these  exacting  days  the 
act  of  a  scoundrel.  It  is  for  every  college 
man  to  stand  ready  to  make  the  moral  ven- 
ture of  fidelity  to  the  highest  in  sight  and 
to  share  in  the  honor  of  the  ultimate  victory. 


[104 


VII 
THE  LAW  OF  RETURNS 


VII 

THE    LAW    OF     RETURNS 


IT  was  a  well-seasoned  parson  who  once 
remarked  that  he  made  it  a  point 
never  to  speak  in  public  without  tak- 
ing a  text.  It  mattered  not  whether  it  was 
an  after-dinner  speech,  a  Fourth  of  July 
oration  or  a  sermon,  he  always  took  a  text, 
that  he  might  be  sure,  as  he  said,  to  "give 
the  people  something  worth  remembering." 

In  imitation  of  his  pious  example  I  will 
take  a  text.  You  will  find  my  text  in  the 
book  of  Numbers,  the  first  chapter  and  the 
second  verse.  It  reads  like  this  —  "Two 
and  two  make  four."  That  particular  state- 
ment does  not  happen  to  be  in  the  Bible, 
but  it  is  as  true  as  anything  which  is  found 
there,  and  it  will  serve  as  a  basis  for  what  I 
wish  to  say  regarding  the  law  of  returns. 

Two  and  two  make  four.  Never  by  any 
sort  of  bad  luck  or  ill  chance  only  three  and 


[107] 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


a  half;  never  by  any  amount  of  pulling  or 
stretching  or  coaxing  four  and  a  half,  but 
always  and  everywhere  just  four  and  no 
more!  It  is  a  definite,  absolute  statement 
of  fact.  It  always  has  been  so  and  it 
always  will  be  so.  No  one  can  imagine  a 
world  where  two  and  two  will  not  make 
four. 

If  a  man  deposits  two  dollars  in  the  bank 
today  and  two  tomorrow,  he  can  draw 
out  four  the  third  day.  In  forty  years 
from  that  time  he  can  still  draw  out  exactly 
four  dollars  and  whatever  interest  upon  his 
original  deposit  the  bank  may  allow.  Life 
is  like  that.  With  what  measure  we  mete, 
it  is  measured  back  to  us  again.  We  get 
out  of  life  what  we  put  in,  by  a  law  as  defi- 
nite and  as  unyielding  as  the  statement 
about  two  and  two.  There  are  no  Santa 
Clauses  lurking  in  the  shadow  —  each  indi- 
vidual takes  out  of  the  big  stocking  what 
has  been  previously  put  in,  not  by  magic, 
but  by  solid  and  verifiable  effort. 

Once  for  all  dismiss  the  idea  that  success 
in  life  is  the  result  of  luck  or  pull  or  any  such 
artificial  thing.  There  was  a  man  in  San 
Francisco  who  once  picked  up  a  five   dollar 

[1081 


THE    LAW    OF    RETURNS 


gold  piece  in  the  street-car.  He  was  a  poor 
man  and  it  was  a  great  find  for  him.  He 
thenceforth  spent  a  large  part  of  his  time 
studying  the  floor  of  the  street-car,  peering 
in  and  out  among  the  feet  of  the  passengers, 
to  find  another  gold  piece.  He  never  found 
another  one,  but  the  time  wasted,  if  it  had 
been  given  to  thought  and  effort  touching 
his  own  trade,  would  have  earned  for  him 
many  an  extra  gold  piece.  Now  and  then 
something  may  occur  which  men  call  "luck," 
but  it  offers  nothing  reliable  by  which  one 
may  safely  shape  his  course. 

Young  men  and  maidens  look  for  four-leaf 
clovers  on  the  Jawn.  They  are  commonly 
intent  upon  something  else  besides  the  clover 
as  they  creep  about  on  their  hands  and  knees 

—  something  sweeter  and  more  satisfying 
than  clover,  and  they  find  this  too.  Occa- 
sionally they  do  find  a  four-leaf  clover,  but 
the  clover  which  makes  the  lawn  green, 
feeds  the  cows,  supplies  the  bees  with  honey 
and  fills    the    haymow,   is  three-leaf    clover 

—  the  ordinary,  every-day  sort  of  clover. 
The  farmer,  the  dairyman,  and  the  bee  all 
know  that  the  reliable  and  satisfying  returns 
in   life   come   not   by   some   happy   chance. 


109 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


but  in  those  common  and  usual  events  which 
are  according  to  law. 

When  the  blood  is  warm,  the  heart  beat- 
ing high  and  fast,  the  nerves  eager  to  yield 
their  thrills,  young  people  see  visions  and 
dream  dreams.  It  ought  to  be  so.  The 
girl  who  does  not  have  her  day-dreams  is 
no  girl  at  all.  The  boy  .who  does  not  see 
ahead  of  him  shapes  and  forms  of  activity, 
achievement,  advance,  higher  and  more  com- 
manding than  the  Sierra,  if  not  quite  so 
solid,  does  not  deserve  to  be  young.  The 
loftier,  the  richer,  the  rosier  these  day-dreams, 
the  better! 

But  those  visions  will  have  to  be  worked 
out  and  realized,  in  so  far  as  they  come  to 
have  a  definite,  ascertainable  value,  in  a 
world  of  plain,  hard  fact.  The  girl  will 
marry  a  man  with  feet  and  hands  like  the 
rest  of  us;  and  the  home  she  has,  the  place 
she  makes  for  herself  in  society,  the  record 
of  useful  service  she  writes  opposite  her 
name,  will  be  determined  according  to  law. 
And  the  place  in  the  world's  life  which  the 
boy  carves  out  for  himself  as  he  climbs 
toward  maturity,  the  size  of  it,  the  location 
of  it,  the  comfort  of  it,  will  be  the  inevitable 


110] 


THE     LAW    OF     RETURNS 


reaction  from  wise  and  useful  effort.  The 
law  of  returns  is  as  sure  as  the  statement 
about  two  and  two  making  four. 

We  find  this  made  plain  in  several 
directions  —  first  of  all  in  the  gaining  and 
maintenance  of  sound  health.  Genuine 
achievement  in  many  lines  becomes  in  the 
last  analysis  largely  a  question  of  nerves, 
digestion,  physical  stamina.  In  the  busy, 
hurried  city  life  the  question  is,  "Can  this 
man  stand  up  to  it  as  long  and  as  effectively 
as  any  other  man  —  and  then  just  that  much 
longer  which  gives  him  preeminence?  The 
lawyer  must  be  able  to  go  into  court  day 
after  day  clear-headed,  so  that  he  will  have 
all  the  law  he  knows  at  his  command,  pa- 
tient and  smooth  with  blundering  witnesses, 
wise  and  self-controlled  in  the  face  of  the 
nagging  of  the  opposing  counsel;  he  must 
be  able  to  do  this  all  day  long  for  weeks 
together,  looking  up  his  authorities  at  night 
oftentimes,  and  not  break  down.  The  physi- 
cian must  do  something  more  than  ride 
around  in  an  automobile  and  look  wise;  he 
must  be  able  to  carry  upon  his  mind  and 
heart  the  anxieties  of  a  hundred  households 
at  once,  work  all  day,  frequently  half  the 


[111 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


night,  eating  and  sleeping  as  he  can,  and  do 
all  this  without  resorting  to  stimulants  or 
drugs  to  keep  himself  up  to  the  mark.  The 
teacher  bent  not  on  imparting  information 
or  on  merely  keeping  the  wheels  of  a  peda- 
gogical machine  turning,  but  upon  the  high 
task  of  forming,  developing,  enriching  per- 
sonality in  fifty  or  sixty  restless  lives  there 
in  plain  view,  needs  a  sound  physique.  The 
minister  of  religion  if  he  is  to  stand  up  be- 
for  the  same  congregation  for  a  score  of 
years  or  more  and  put  faith,  hope,  courage, 
heart,  and  resolution  into  them  and  not 
become  fagged  out  and  stale,  must  be  a  man 
who  can  sleep  nights,  digest  his  meals,  main- 
tain his  poise,  rise  early,  and  go  all  day  with- 
out losing  his  head  or  his  health  —  and  for 
all  this  he  needs  a  prime  body.  The  same 
is  true  in  the  life  of  the  merchant  or  the 
mechanic,  in  the  work  of  the  manufacturer 
or  the  farmer. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher  used  to  say  that 
there  were  three  kinds  of  people  in  the  world 
—  the  sick  people  who  must  be  taken  care 
of  with  sympathetic  tenderness;  the  people 
who  are  not  sick,  able  to  be  up  and  to  take 
their  nourishment;  and  the  people  who  are 


112 


THE     LAW     OF     RETURNS 


positively,  radiantly,  and  joyously  well.  If 
the  young  man  has  not  been  handicapped 
by  some  accident  or  by  an  unfortunate  hered- 
ity, it  lies  easily  within  his  power  to  be 
enrolled  in  this  third  class.  He  ought  to 
hold  himself  resolutely  unwilling  to  accept 
anything  less. 

It  is  much  more  than  a  matter  of  personal 
prudence  or  of  self-interest.  Up  to  the  limit 
of  his  powers  each  man  owes  it  to  his  family, 
to  his  friends,  and  to  the  world  about  him 
to  furnish  it  one  more  healthy,  vigorous  life. 
The  world  is  defrauded  if  by  his  foolishness, 
dissipation,  or  laziness  it  is  put  off  with  a 
whining,  grumbling,  irritable  caricature  of 
what  the  man  might  have  been.  He  owes 
it  to  the  members  of  his  family  not  to  bur- 
den them  with  unnecessary  doctor's  bills, 
nursing,  and  anxiety.  He  owes  it  to  them  not 
to  break  down  and  die  before  his  time,  leav- 
ing them  to  struggle  on  alone.  Good,  sound 
health,  clear  up  to  the  limit  of  what  intelli- 
gence, conscience,  and  that  resolution  which 
will  not  take  "no"  for  an  answer  may  achieve, 
becomes  a  moral  obligation!  The  man  who 
shirks  this  physical  duty  becomes  to  that 
extent  a  scamp. 

[1131 


..^      OF    THE 

Of 


THE    CAP    AIVD    GOWN 


Such  physical  efficiency  comes  not  as  a 
piece  of  good  luck;  nor  is  disease  to  be 
regarded  always  as  a  misfortune  or  "a 
mysterious  dispensation  of  providence."  The 
man  careless  about  the  drainage  or  thought- 
lessly allowing  decaying  vegetables  to  lie  in 
the  cellar  of  his  home  need  not  prate  about 
"providence"  if  fever  attacks  some  member 
of  his  household.  The  man  who  eats  hot 
biscuits  three  times  a  day  and  drinks  coffee 
by  the  quart  until  he  is  as  yellow  as  a  China- 
man has  no  right  to  shake  his  head  over  "the 
mysterious  ways  of  God,"  when  he  becomes 
ill.  The  young  fellow  who  inhales  whole 
fog-banks  of  cigarette  smoke  until  his  lungs 
are  weak  and  his  heart  action  defective, 
who  tampers  with  his  nerves  by  the  use  of 
stimulants  or  narcotics,  need  not  be  surprised 
that  in  the  hard  contests  of  life  sounder  men 
walk  on  ahead,  leaving  him  in  the  rear.  In 
each  case  the  man  forgot  that  two  and  two 
make  four,  that  we  must  settle  by  the  books, 
that  according  to  the  law  of  returns  we  take 
out  what  we  put  in. 

Physical  efficiency  cannot  be  hastily 
bought  in  the  drug  store  at  a  dollar  a  bottle 
any  more  than  women  can  buy  good  com- 


[114 


THE    LAW    OF     RETURNS 


plexions  there  for  fifty  cents  a  box.  Beauty 
is  more  than  skin  deep;  it  roots  all  the  way 
down  into  those  vital  processes  which  give 
the  fair  woman  the  appearance  and  the  real- 
ity of  joyous,  engaging  health.  And  the 
physical  efficiency  which  stands  the  strain 
of  modern  life  cannot  be  rapidly  gained  by 
the  use  of  drugs;  it  comes  according  to 
the  law  of  definite  returns.  It  comes  only 
as  men  eat  good  food,  enough  and  not  too 
much,  drink  that  which  slakes  rather  than 
crieates  thirst,  sleep  a  sufficient  number  of 
hours,  some  of  them  before  midnight,  breathe 
their  full  share  of  the  outdoor  air  where  there 
is  plenty  for  everybody,  and  exercise  them- 
selves sanely  in  some  wholesome  industry. 
It  all  comes  according  to  method  and  not 
by  magic. 

The  newspapers  on  the  morning  after 
the  presidential  election  of  nineteen  hun- 
dred brought  us  an  interesting  picture. 
One  of  the  candidates  for  vice-president 
that  year  had  been  traveling  for  weeks 
together,  speaking  ten  or  fifteen  times 
a  day  to  great  audiences  eager  to  drain 
him  of  his  last  drop  of  vitality.  He  had  been 
meeting  influential  citizens  by  the  hundreds, 

[1151 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


shaking  hands  with  them  until  his  right  arm 
might  have  felt  like  the  handle  of  some  out- 
worn town  pump.  He  had  been  doing  all 
this  under  the  constant  strain  of  tremendous 
excitement  and  personal  interest.  A  man 
who  had  wasted  his  strength  in  vicious 
indulgences  would  have  lasted  about  as  long 
in  such  a  situation  as  an  old  lady  would 
last  in  a  football  game.  This  man  went 
through  it  without  breaking  down,  without 
losing  his  head  or  making  foolish,  damaging 
statements.  And  when  the  reporters  went 
to  call  on  him  the  night  of  the  election  they 
found  him  in  evening  dress,  rejoicing  in  the 
companionship  of  his  family,  from  whom  he 
had  been  separated  for  those  weeks,  calmly 
awaiting  the  returns.  Theodore  Roosevelt 
—  whether  we  agree  with  all  his  policies  or 
not,  we  admire  a  vigorous,  intelligent,  pub- 
lic-spirited American  citizen  wherever  found ! 
He  entered  college  a  delicate  lad.  He  gained 
and  maintained  that  splendid  efficiency  by 
remembering  that  two  and  two  make  four. 
He  was  willing  to  pay  the  full  price  for  viril- 
ity by  his  steady  attention  to  the  law  of 
returns. 

The  same  rule  holds  in  the  mental  field. 


116 


THE     LAW     OF     RETURNS 


There  are  men  who  fall  into  the  way 
of  relying  upon  what  they  are  pleased  to 
call  "genius."  A  bad  case  of  "genius"  in 
a  young  man  is  almost  as  fatal  to  his  highest 
success  as  smallpox.  There  are  a  few  men 
in  each  generation  exceptionally  endowed, 
just  as  there  are  a  few  four-leaf  clovers  in 
every  field,  but  the  work  of  the  world  is 
done  mainly  by  men  of  average  build. 

And  even  men  of  undeniable  genius  attrib- 
ute their  success  mainly  to  persistent  effort. 
Agassiz  used  to  say,  "I  seem  to  have  formed 
the  habit  of  observing  more  closely  than 
many  of  my  associates."  Darwin,  whose 
work  was  epoch  making,  made  that  famous 
trip  for  observation  on  H.  M.  S.  Beagle  in 
1837.  In  1844  he  ventured  to  show  a  few 
of  his  notes  to  some  intimate  friends.  In 
1859,  twenty-two  years  after  he  had  col- 
lected the  first  data  for  the  theory  finally 
announced,  he  published  "The  Origin  of 
Species,"  and  the  world  of  science,  of  phi- 
losophy, of  religion,  underwent  a  radical 
change  as  a  result  of  his  thorough  work. 

Ask  ninety-nine  men  out  of  a  hundred 
how  they  succeeded  and  the  answer  will 
come  back  —  "Hard  work."     Inspiration  is 


117 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


all  very  well,  but  for  the  mass  of  us  perspira- 
tion is  a  surer  pathway  to  achievement. 
Wellington,  Newton,  Lord  Clive,  Napoleon, 
Walter  Scott,  Daniel  Webster  were  all 
regarded  as  dull  boys  —  in  each  case  advance- 
ment came  by  persistent  effort.  The  capac- 
ity was  there,  but  it  was  brought  out  not 
by  magic  nor  by  some  sudden  burst  of 
inspiration,  but  by  hard  work. 

Knowledge  is  power,  where  the  knowledge 
is  not  a  mere  mass  of  information.  The 
mere  accumulation  of  facts  has  little  worth, 
for  all  this  lies  ready  to  our  hand  in  the 
encyclopedia  whenever  it  is  needed.  The 
knowledge  which  brings  power  lies  in  the 
ability  to  read  and  to  know  what  it  is  all 
about  and  how  it  bears  on  other  things  we 
have  read;  in  the  ability  to  think  and  when 
one  thinks  to  produce  something  with  the 
look  and  taste  of  his  own  mind  upon  it;  in 
the  ability  to  see  three  things,  sharply  dis- 
tinguishing them,  and  then  to  see  them  in 
their  relations,  and  then  to  see  another 
group  of  three  and  another,  organizing  the 
whole  nine  into  some  sort  of  system.  The 
knowledge  which  is  power  means  insight, 
grasp,    discrimination,    productiveness.      It 

fll8l 


THE     LAW     OF     RETURNS 


is  not  the  sole  property  of  genius,  but  rather 
the  natural  return  for  a  long  life  of  consistent, 
intellectual  effort. 

Each  man  owes  it  to  society  to  make  his 
utmost  effort  to  furnish  it  one  more  such 
well-equipped  member.  This  purpose  in- 
cludes much  more  than  the  desire  for  that 
individual  success  and  preeminence  which 
might  prompt  the  effort  —  it  indicates  a 
wish  to  be  capable  and  serviceable  to  those 
larger  interests  wdiich  lag  for  lack  of  com- 
petent service. 

When  Booker  Washington  addresses  the 
students  gathered  at  Tuskegee,  it  is  after 
this  fashion.  "You  have  not  come  here  to 
receive  training  in  order  that  you  may  go 
back  and  compete  more  successfully  with 
your  untrained  associates,  in  earning  higher 
wages  to  feather  your  own  nests  quickly 
and  w^armly.  You  have  not  come  here  to 
become  intelligent  and  cultivated  that  you 
may  go  back  and  proudly  establish  better 
homes  and  higher  types  of  family  life  than 
the  untutored  negroes  maintain.  You  are 
here  that  being  trained  you  may  feel  more 
heavily  and  capably  responsible  for  the  wel- 
fare of  vour  race  in  the  several  communities 


119 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


where  you  are  to  live  and  work."  If  this  is 
the  splendid  ideal  in  the  green  tree  of  a  black 
man's  school,  what  shall  we  expect  in  the  dry 
tree  of  the  white  man's  school!  The  high 
office  of  all  mental  drill  should  be  to  send 
men  out  "more  heavily  and  capably  respon- 
sible" for  the  general  good,  and  this  high 
quality  of  competency  comes  only  by  strict 
attention  to  the  law  of  returns. 

The  same  method  holds  in  moral  values 
although  many  people  feel  that  here  we  enter 
a  region  of  hocus-pocus,  a  realm  of  magic 
and  sleight  of  hand  where  two  and  two  may 
possibly,  upon  occasion,  make  five  or  even 
fifty.  There  is  an  impression  in  some 
quarters  that  a  young  fellow  may  sow  an 
abundant  crop  of  wild  oats,  that  he  may  wal- 
low in  the  mire  of  vicious  indulgence,  that 
he  may  for  years  disregard  his  spiritual 
interests  with  flat  indifference,  and  then  by 
some  sudden  spasm  of  moral  feeling  begin 
anew,  as  fine  and  as  sound  a  man  as  if  he  had 
never  been  in  the  far  country  with  the  har- 
lots and  the  swine. 

The  standard  books  on  ethics  give  us  no 
hint  that  such  is  the  fact.  The  Bible  says 
nothing  in  support  of  such  a  notion.     There 


THE     L  A  \V     OF     RETURNS 


is  not  a  land  the  sun  shines  on  where  two 
and  two  do  not  make  four  in  morals  as  well 
as  in  mathematics.  There  are  no  short 
cuts  to  spiritual  soundness.  The  Almighty 
is  a  careful  bookkeeper  and  the  teaching  of 
reason,  experience,  and  conscience  is  to  the 
effect  that  here,  as  everywhere,  we  must  ac- 
cept those  reactions  which  come  inevitably 
by  this  great  law  of  returns. 

There  was  a  missionary  to  the  Indians 
who,  in  seeking  to  induce  habits  of  Sabbath 
observance,  told  them  that  if  they  planted 
their  corn  on  Sunday  it  would  not  grow.  n 
that  spirit  of  human  perversity  which  we 
all  understand  and  share,  they  immediately 
went  out  and  planted  an  acre  of  corn  on 
Sunday!  They  hoed  it  and  tended  it  always 
on  Sunday.  And  because  they  took  espe- 
cial pains  with  it,  when  autumn  came  it 
yielded  more  corn  than  any  other  acre  on 
the  reservation.  Then  the  Indians  laughed 
at  the  good  missionary  and  would  not  go 
to  church. 

There  is  a  penalty  for  planting  and  hoeing 
corn  on  Sunday,  but  it  does  not  show  in  the 
corn  —  it  shows  in  the  men.  The  corn  may 
grow  to  its  full  size,  but  the  men  will  not 

[1211 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


grow  to  their  full  size,  nor  yield  the  full 
return  appropriate  to  the  cultivation  of 
human  values.  The  missionary  was  sound 
in  his  main  purpose,  but  faulty  in  his  method, 
because  in  the  moral  world  as  elsewhere, 
we  find  the  reign  of  law  and  not  the  opera- 
tion of  magic.  The  neglect  of  the  higher 
values  for  which  the  Sabbath  stands  will  not 
at  once  affect  the  cornfield,  but  it  will  show 
in  the  spiritual  deficiencies  of  the  men  who 
have  no  place  in  the  week  for  the  cultiva- 
tion of  reverence,  aspiration,  and  the  sense 
of  fellowship  with  the  Unseen. 

There  is  no  shuffling  nor  chance  in  the 
moral  world.  Impulses  lead  to  choices; 
choices  readily  become  habits;  habits  harden 
speedily  into  character,  and  character  deter- 
mines destiny.  Two  and  two  make  four 
all  the  way  up,  all  the  way  down,  and  all 
the  way  in. 

In  a  New  York  hotel  the  chambermaid 
one  morning  discovered  the  dead  bod}^  of  a 
young  man  and  at  his  side,  scrawled  on  a 
piece  of  paper,  she  found  this  last  will  and 
testament:  "I  leave  to  society  a  bad  ex- 
ample. I  leave  to  my  father  and  mother  all 
the  sorrow  they  can  bear  in  their  old  age. 


122 


THE     LAW     OF     R  E  T  U  R  N  S 

I  leave  to  my  brothers  and  sisters  the  mem- 
ory of  a  misspent  life.  I  leave  to  my  wife 
a  broken  heart  and  to  my  children  the  name 
of  a  drunkard  and  a  suicide.  I  leave  to  God 
a  lost  soul  which  has  defied  and  insulted  his 
loving  mercy." 

He  wrote  it  all  out,  signed  it,  and  then 
shot  himself.  His  appetites  had  gotten  away 
with  him,  his  habits  were  no  longer  under 
his  control.  He  began  as  many  an  enthu- 
siastic, generous  young  fellow^  begins  by 
simply  having  a  succession  of  "good  times" 
and  they  grew  on  him  until  the  habits  he 
had  developed  were  no  longer  his  —  he  was 
theirs.  He  forgot  that  two  and  two  make 
four,  and  the  gruesome  legacy  he  was  com- 
pelled to  leave  issued  as  inevitably  from  his 
course  of  life  as  the  sum  total  at  the  foot  of 
a  column  of  figures. 

The  sound  health  which  serves  as  the  phys- 
ical basis  of  enlarging  and  enduring  efficiency; 
the  trained  intelligence  which  know^s  what 
to  do  next  and  finds  itself  competent  for 
the  task;  the  type  of  character  which  is  reli- 
able and  profitable  for  the  life  that  now  is 
and  for  that  which  is  to  come,  all  come  to 
us  as  splendid  reactions   from   that   stable, 

[1231 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


definite,  methodical  order,  seen  and  unseen, 
which  enfolds  us  ever.  What  you  receive 
as  the  natural  rebound  from  your  mode  of 
life  will  be  like  in  quality  and  proportionate 
in  amount  to  that  which  you  express  in 
effort,  for  the  law  of  returns,  like  the  law  of 
gravitation,  is  always  on  duty. 


124 


VIII 
THE   HIGHEST  FORM   OF   REWARD 


VIII 

THE     HIGHEST    FORM    OF    REWARD 


THE  Scriptures  show  their  good  sense 
by  frankly  facing  and  accepting 
the  hope  of  reward  as  a  legitimate 
source  of  motive.  There  are  fine  people 
who  almost  go  into  spasms  over  the  idea 
of  working  for  a  reward.  "Do  right,"  they 
say,  '*  because  it  is  right,  not  because  you 
will  gain  something  by  it."  "Live  nobly, 
because  it  is  the  highest  duty  there  is,  with 
no  thought  of  what  may  come  to  you  in 
consequence."  "Do  your  work  well  for  the 
sheer  joy  of  it,  not  because  you  will  be  paid 
well  for  good  work."  All  this  is  very  pretty 
and  does  credit  to  the  lovely  dispositions  of 
those  who  utter  these  sentiments,  but  it  is 
just  a  little  too  good  for  this  common  earth. 
It  was  just  a  little  too  good  for  the  men 
who  wrote  the  Bible.  Jesus  himself  did 
not   hesitate   to    say,    "Do   this,  and  great 

[127] 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


shall  be  your  reward  in  heaven."  He  said, 
"If  any  man  shall  give  a  cup  of  cold  water 
in  my  name,"  that  is  to  say,  in  the  right 
spirit,  "he  shall  in  no  wise  lose  his  reward." 
He  built  squarely  upon  the  foundation  laid 
by  that  singer  of  old,  "The  statutes  of 
the  Lord  are  right;  the  commandments  of 
the  Lord  are  pure;  the  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether,  and 
in  keeping  of  them  there  is  great  reward." 
The  hope  of  reward  according  to  the  Scrip- 
tures is  a  legitimate  source  of  motive. 

But  what  form  should  the  reward  take? 
What  is  the  highest  form  of  reward?  One 
finds  all  manner  of  answers  to  this  question 
strung  along  in  an  ascending  series.  We 
find  those  who  always  think  of  reward  in 
terms  of  material  success.  "It  pays  to  be 
good,"  these  men  say  —  to  be  good,  at  any 
rate,  up  to  a  certain  point.  "Honesty  is 
the  best  policy"  —  in  the  long  run  as  a 
method  of  business  procedure  it  can  show 
more  dividends  than  dishonesty  can.  "The 
way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard,"  now  in  one 
way,  now  in  another,  but  always  hard  at 
the  end.  Transgression  does  not  pay  when 
the  returns  are  all  in.     The  main  theme  of 


128 


THE     HIGHEST     F  O  1\  M     OF     RE  VV  A  1!  I) 

the  book  of  Deuteronomy  is  that  obedience 
to  Jehovah  will  bring  blessings  wrought  out 
in  terms  of  material  prosperity.  "If  thou 
shalt  hearken  unto  the  voice  of  the  Lord 
thy  God,  blessed  shalt  thou  be  in  basket 
and  in  store;  blessed  shalt  thou  be  in  the 
city  and  in  the  field;  blessed  shalt  thou  be 
when  thou  goest  out  and  when  thou  comest 
in."  Reckoned  up  in  terms  of  visible  suc- 
cess, righteousness  would  be  the  best  asset 
a  nation  could  possess. 

We  have  here  a  great  truth;  it  is  not 
the  whole  truth,  but  it  is  a  fragment  of 
truth  not  to  be  despised.  The  young  man 
in  New  York,  whose  main  interest  is  mate- 
rial success,  setting  out  to  achieve  his  ambi- 
tion by  dishonesty  is  trying  to  make  the  Hud- 
son River  turn  round  and  flow  back  to  Albany. 
It  cannot  be  done.  He  will  get  wet  and 
muddy  and  be  drowned,  perhaps,  for  his  pains 
and,  when  he  is  all  through  with  his  experi- 
ment, the  Hudson  will  be  flowing  right  along 
just  the  same. 

In  like  manner,  the  big,  strong,  moral  order 
which  enfolds  us  whether  we  like  it  or  not, 
whether  we  think  about  it  or  believe  in  it 
or  not,  the  big,  strong,  moral  order  cannot 

[  129  ] 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


be  defied  nor  ignored.  Here  and  there  some 
young  fellow  thinks  he  has  found  a  way  of 
turning  it  round  in  what  he  supposes  to  be 
his  own  interest.  He,  too,  simply  gets  wet 
and  muddy,  and  rowned,  perhaps,  in  his 
foolish  efforts  while  the  great,  eternal  veri- 
ties of  right  and  wrong  are  still  there  as  they 
were  before  he  pitted  his  puny  strength 
against  them.  The  fact  stands  that  right- 
eousness exalts  a  nation  or  an  individual 
as  nothing  else  can. 

But  this  fragment  of  truth  is  only  a  frag- 
ment. A  man  who  is  righteous  to  a  certain 
extent  because  it  pays  is  not  a  high  type. 
The  one  who  is  honest  because  honesty  is 
the  best  policy  is  not  very  honest  —  put 
him  in  a  situation  where  honesty  involves 
personal  sacrifice  and  one  could  not  bank 
on  his  honesty.  The  man  who  is  intent 
upon  furnishing  the  world  so  much  upright- 
ness in  exchange  for  a  certain  amount  of 
advancement  which  he  hopes  to  gain  can 
scarcely  be  said  to  be  in  the  moral  field  at 
all.  He  is  merely  doing  a  little  business 
with  the  Lord,  —  so  much  character  for  so 
much  success.  It  may  all  be  as  purely  a 
commercial  transaction,  when  analyzed  down 


130 


TUE    HIGHEST     FORM    OF     REWARD 

to  its  roots,  as  the  buying  of  a  suit  of  clothes. 
His  gifts  to  benevolence  when  scrutinized 
are  seen  to  be  only  shrewd  "investments." 
Increased  material  prosperity  is  a  form  of  re- 
ward, but  it  is  not  the  highest  form,  and  it  does 
not  furnish  a  praiseworthy  source  of  motive. 

We  find  those  who  look  for  their  reward 
in  the  appreciation  of  others.  We  all  like 
to  have  the  esteem  of  our  fellows  and  we 
ought  to  like  it.  That  queer  stick  who  is 
always  flinging  out  sneers  about  popularity, 
who  insists  that  he  does  not  care  a  straw 
what  people  think  about  him,  cares  more 
than  any  of  us.  He  has  an  idea  that  by  this 
strange  course  he  will  be  talked  about  more 
and  be  regarded  more  highly  for  his  oddity 
than  he  would  be  if  he  shaped  up  his  life  in 
a  more  rational  way. 

Reputation  is  not  character;  it  may  be 
only  the  uncertain  shadow  cast  by  charac- 
ter, but  it  can  be,  for  all  that,  a  pleasant  and 
a  healing  shadow.  One  of  the  wisest  of 
men  said,  "A  good  name  is  rather  to  be  chosen 
than  great  riches."  A  good  name  is  simply 
what  people  say  about  a  man.  The  appre- 
ciation and  the  esteem  which  right  living 
wins  is  a  legitimate  form  of  reward. 

[131] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


But  this  also  is  liable  to  be  distorted. 
Jesus  saw  certain  people  making  this  form 
of  reward  the  object  of  supreme  desire. 
He  warned  his  disciples  against  that  course. 
"Take  heed  that  you  do  not  your  alms 
before  men  to  be  seen  of  them.  When  thou 
doest  thine  alms  sound  not  a  trumpet  before 
thee  as  the  hypocrites  do,  that  they  may 
have  glory  of  men.  Verily  I  say  unto  you, 
they  have  their  reward."  These  men  ren- 
dered their  generous  service  with  showy 
ostentation,  blowing  their  horns  as  they 
went.  They  did  it  that  they  might  have 
glory  of  men  and  they  had  glory  of  men  — 
they  got  the  dividends  they  desired. 

"And  when  thou  pray  est  thou  shalt  not 
be  as  the  hypocrites:  they  love  to  pray 
standing  on  the  street  corners  that  they  may 
be  seen  of  men.  Verily  I  say  unto  you, 
they  have  their  reward."  They  prayed  on 
the  street  corners  that  they  might  be  seen 
of  men  and  they  were  seen  of  men  —  they 
got  what  they  prayed  for. 

The  desire  for  esteem  is  not  a  satisfactory 
source  of  motive.  The  boy  who  cannot  do 
his  duty  unless  he  is  praised  and  petted  for 
it  afterward  is  a  poor  specimen  —  he  is  likely 


[132] 


THE     HIGHEST     F  O  K  M     OF     RE  V\  A  U  D 

to  become  a  vain,  self-conscious  little  prig. 
The  man  who  cannot  perform  unless  he  is 
in  the  lime-light,  hearing  the  plaudits  of  the 
many,  is  made  of  poor  stuff  —  he  is  lath 
and  plaster,  where  there  should  be  sound 
material.  All  such  speedily  lose  the  finer 
qualities  out  of  whatever  measure  of  right- 
eousness they  seem  to  possess.  When  a  man 
goes  straight  along  about  his  business,  intent 
upon  doing  his  own  piece  of  work  well  and 
succeeds  in  such  a  way  that  the  gratitude, 
esteem,  and  appreciation  of  his  fellows  come, 
he  scarcely  knows  how,  he  finds  this  a  beau- 
tiful and  enduring  source  of  satisfaction. 
But  here  as  everywhere  the  law  of  indirec- 
tion operates  —  he  that  saves  his  popular- 
ity by  aiming  for  it  loses  it;  he  that  loses 
all  thought  of  it  by  investing  his  life  in  use- 
ful service  finds  it. 

There  are  men  who  think  of  the  highest 
form  of  reward  as  standing  in  the  approval 
of  one's  own  conscience  and  in  the  sense 
of  having  the  favor  of  God.  The  throne  of 
judgment  where  I  must  stand  and  give 
account  is  not  away  yonder  among  the  clouds 
—  it  is  in  here  where  I  am.  It  is  within 
my  own  heart  where  God  is  —  where  my  God 

[133] 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


is.  It  is  here  that  I  meet  him  now  and  must 
meet  and  face  him  ever. 

And  no  quantity  of  outward  success,  no 
full,  warm  tide  of  popular  esteem  will  supply 
the  lack  of  moral  self-respect  within.  If 
any  man  knows  that  his  heart  is  not  right 
before  God,  that  his  purposes  are  not  true, 
that  his  aspirations  are  low,  then  no  amount 
of  material  success  or  popular  applause 
will  give  him  tranquillity  of  spirit.  And, 
conversely,  where  there  is  honesty  of  pur- 
pose, where  a  man  may  look  himself  in  the 
face  with  unsparing  candor  and  know  that 
he  is  entitled  to  respect,  this  fact  of  itself 
brings  a  peace  which  passeth  all  under- 
standing. This  inner  sense  of  worth  and 
peace  is  from  on  high  and  it  becomes  a  fine 
form  of  reward. 

There  are  ugly  distortions  of  it.  The 
Pharisee  who  went  into  the  temple  to  pray 
felt  very  comfortable  in  his  own  mind.  We 
saw  it  in  his  strut  as  he  walked  down  the 
aisle.  We  noticed  it  in  the  way  he  stood, 
when  he  prayed  thus  with  himself,  "God,  I 
thank  thee,  that  I  am  not  as  other  men 
are,  extortioners,  unjust,  adulterers."  He 
named  the  lowest,   meanest  men  he  could 

[  134  1 


THE  HIGHEST  FORM  OF  RE  WARE 

think  of.  It  would  not  be  hard  to  outrun 
such  men  morally,  but  such  a  race  as  it  was 
the  Pharisee  had  won  it.  "I  thank  thee 
that  I  am  not  as  other  men  are,  or  even 
as  this  publican."  It  was  fortunate  that 
the  publican  chanced  to  be  there;  it  added 
a  cubit  of  self-complacency  to  the  Pharisee 
to  have  the  publican  present.  "I  fast  twice 
in  the  week;  I  give  a  tenth  of  all  that  I  pos- 
sess," the  Pharisee  continued.  He  had 
been  doing  right  for  the  sake  of  the  self- 
satisfaction  which  would  result  —  and  he 
had  his  reward.  I  do  not  know  of  a  man  in 
history  who  seemed  to  have  more  of  it.  He 
was  comfortable  to  "the  thirty-third  and  last 
degree"  in  that  feeling  of  self -approval 
which  clothed  him  as  with  a  garment. 

But  what  a  narrow,  self -centered  life  it 
produces  where  this  becomes  the  chief  form 
of  reward  for  which  a  man  strives!  "I  will 
speak  this  kind  word  and  do  this  generous 
deed  and  stand  firm  in  the  path  of  duty, 
because  of  the  warm  feelings  of  self-approval 
which  will  steal  upon  my  heart,"  such  a 
man  cries.  It  is  better  to  have  the  approval 
of  one's  conscience  than  not  to  have  it;  it 
is  better  to  strive  for  inner  peace  and  satis- 

[135] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


faction  than  to  have  one's  eye  constantly 
on  material  success  or  popular  applause. 
But  where  this  becomes  the  object  of  supreme 
interest  it  is  a  disappointing  and  a  narrowing 
form  of  reward. 

What  shall  we  say,  then,  is  the  highest 
form,  if  neither  material  success  nor  pop- 
ular esteem  nor  the  approval  of  one's  own 
conscience  is  worthy  to  stand  in  that  holy 
place?  I  find  the  highest  form  of  reward 
named  by  the  Master  in  the  parable  of  the 
Good  Samaritan,  "This  do  and  thou  shalt 
live."  The  reward  for  right  living,  for 
loving  God  and  loving  one's  neighbor  after 
the  manner  indicated  in  the  parable,  lies 
in  the  increased  power  we  gain  to  live.  This 
do  and  thou  shalt  live  —  live  more  abun- 
dantly, more  effectively,  more  serviceably. 
The  reward  of  right  life  is  a  larger  life. 

The  man  in  the  parable  who  had  been 
faithful  and  diligent  with  the  one  pound 
entrusted  to  him  received  this  reward: 
"Well  done,  thou  good  and  faithful  ser- 
vant; thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a  few 
things,  I  will  make  thee  ruler  over  many 
things!  Have  thou  authority  over  ten 
cities."     The  reward  for  good  conduct  was 


[136 


THE     HIGHEST     FORM    OF     REWARD 

enlarged  capacity  and  enlarged  opportunity 
for  more  good  conduct.  The  man's  powers 
were  increased  by  what  he  had  been  doing 
and  his  chance  for  the  exercise  of  them  was 
greater;  now,  in  place  of  the  single  pound 
to  be  used  in  trading,  he  had  authority  over 
ten  cities.  In  this  sense  of  increased  capac- 
ity to  meet  the  increasing  obligations  of  life 
lies  the  highest  form  of  reward. 

In  one  of  his  little  books,  Henry  van  Dyke 
speaks  of  three  ideals  of  education.  The 
man  with  "the  decorative  ideal"  thinks  it 
is  a  fine  thing  to  go  through  college.  It 
gives  one  an  air  of  distinction.  It  enables 
him  to  belong  to  the  University  Club  in  the 
city  where  he  lives.  It  enables  him  to  refer 
to  "my  class,"  and  to  the  "good  old  days" 
at  Harvard  or  Yale,  at  Cornell  or  Princeton, 
at  Stanford  or  California.  He  may  even  be 
prompted  to  become  a  "dig"  in  the  hope 
that  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa  key  will  unlock  doors 
closed  to  other  men.  And  because  he  is  a 
university  man  he  feels  that  he  possesses  a 
rare  and  cultivated  taste  in  poetry  and  in 
philosophy,  in  music  and  in  art.  He  thinks 
of  his  education  as  a  highly  decorative 
appendage  to  his  personal  life. 

[137] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


The  second  man  has  no  use  for  all  this; 
he  has  "the  marketable  ideal"  of  education. 
He  is  one  of  those  "no-nonsense-about-me" 
fellows.  In  selecting  his  courses  he  has  a 
thoroughly  practical  eye  to  the  main  chance. 
He  is  very  contemptuous  in  his  attitude 
toward  the  study  of  dead  languages  or  of 
metaphysics.  "What  good  would  all  that 
do  me,  when  I  got  out  into  the  world.?"  he 
says.  He  thinks  of  himself  as  a  tool  to  be 
ground  and  sharpened  so  that  in  the  world 
of  business  it  will  cut  where  other  tools 
fail.  He  is  intent  upon  gaining  an  education 
not  for  the  purpose  of  living  but  for  the  pur- 
pose of  making  a  living,  which  is  a  very 
different  thing. 

The  true  ideal  of  education  is  "the  crea- 
tive ideal."  The  work  of  the  school  is  not 
to  enable  the  shoemaker  to  stick  to  his  last 
and  make  more  money  out  of  it  than  unedu- 
cated men  are  making  out  of  their  lasts. 
"Education  is  to  lift  the  shoemaker  above 
his  last,  and  to  carry  the  merchant  beyond 
his  store,  the  lawyer  beyond  his  brief,  the 
minister  beyond  his  sermon. ' '  The  supreme 
reward  for  being  educated  lies  in  the  enlarged 
capacity    one    gains    for    life.     The    reward 


[138 


THE    HIGHEST     FORM     OF    R  E  W  A  U  D 

for  physical  exercise,  for  mental  drill,  for 
hard  study,  for  the  steady  effort  to  do  one's 
duty,  is  to  be  found  in  that  increased  power 
to  live.  This  do  and  thou  shalt  live  a  larger, 
freer,  finer  life.  This  do  and  thou  shalt  be 
alive  at  more  points,  on  higher  levels,  and 
in  more  efficient  and  serviceable  ways. 

We  cannot  possibly  stop  short  of  that. 
If  a  man  thinks  of  his  education  as  only  mak- 
ing him  more  marketable,  he  has  his  mind 
fixed  upon  material  success  as  the  highest 
form  of  reward.  If  he  thinks  of  it  mainly 
as  a  thing  that  will  win  the  admiration  of 
his  less  cultured  associates,  he  is  still  in  the 
clutches  of  that  decorative  idea.  If  he 
thinks  of  it  mainly  as  having  value  in  giving 
him  the  consciousness  of  intelligence  and 
culture,  he  is  still  on  an  unsatisfactory  level 
of  thought  and  purpose. 

"Come  on  up  to  the  head  of  the  stairs," 
the  great  educational  processes  of  the  world 
call  to  us!  "Come  on  up  where  you  can  see 
and  breathe  and  grow."  This  do  and  thou 
shalt  live;  this  alone  indicates  the  great 
end  in  view.  Enlarged  capacity  for  real 
life  is  the  goal  of  all  serious  endeavor.  We 
may  or  may  not  gain  material  success;  we 

[1391 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


may  or  may  not  secure  a  large  measure  of 
popular  applause;  we  will  beyond  a  perad- 
venture  have  a  deep,  sweet  feeling  of  peace 
within  as  we  face  that  way,  but  the  main 
result  will  be  that,  by  doing  all  these  things 
well,  we  shall  gain  increased  power  and  ca- 
pacity for  living  the  life.  Here  we  reach 
that  which  is  ultimate.  "This  do  and  thou 
shalt  live"  is  the  final  word  on  the  subject 
of  reward. 

The  highest  return  for  doing  anything 
lies  in  the  power  one  gains  to  do  it  better  and 
to  do  more  of  it.  The  reward  for  reading 
is  not  in  the  information  gained  or  in  the 
ideas  acquired  so  much  as  in  the  mental 
stimulus  which  comes,  enabling  one  to  read 
more  books  and  better  ones  and  in  time  to 
produce  ideas  of  his  own.  The  artist  goes 
out  into  the  world  to  see  the  beauty  of  it 
in  tree  and  flower,  in  landscape  and  moun- 
tain, in  the  quiet  lake,  and  in  the  restless 
sea.  His  reward  comes  in  increased  power 
to  see  more  beauty  there  than  other  people 
see  and  to  transfer  what  he  sees  to  canvas. 
"I  never  saw  anything  like  that  in  nature," 
a  woman  once  said  to  Turner  as  she  looked 
at    one    of    his    pictures.     "Very    likely," 

[  140  1 


THE    HIGHEST     FORM     OF     REWARD 

replied  the  artist;  "how  much  would  you 
give,  madam,  if  you  could?"  Turn  your 
face  any  way  you  choose  and  the  great  state- 
ment of  the  Master  about  reward  holds 
true,  —  this  do  and  thou  shalt  live. 

Carry  it  up  to  the  moral  level.  The  re- 
ward for  doing  your  duty  lies  in  the  increased 
power  you  gain  to  keep  on  doing  it  and  to 
do  it  better.  The  reward  for  loving  lies  in 
the  increased  power  to  love  and  to  love  more 
worthily.  The  reward  for  meeting  and  mas- 
tering some  hard  situation  in  life,  tempta- 
tion, disappointment,  struggle,  sorrow,  lies 
in  the  added  strength  you  gain  to  master 
still  harder  situations  which  may  arise. 
In  your  spiritual  pilgrimage  you  go  "from 
strength  to  strength,"  from  one  form  of 
strength  to  another  and  a  higher  form, 
from  one  measure  of  strength  to  another  and 
a  fuller  measure,  until  at  last  you  reach  the 
fulness  of  the  stature  of  Christ. 

You  may  recall  that  great  promise  made  in 
the  last  book  of  the  Bible!  "Be  thou  faith- 
ful unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  "  —  what.^^ 
What  form  will  the  ultimate  reward  take.'^ 
"I  will  give  thee  a  crown,"  not  of  gold  with 
diamonds   in   it  larger  than   the  Kohinoor, 

[141] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


not  the  crown  of  material  success.  "I  will 
give  thee  a  crown,"  not  of  laurel  such  as 
the  Greeks  placed  upon  the  brow  of  the 
victors  in  the  games,  the  crown  of  popular 
applause.  "I  will  give  thee  a  crown,"  not 
of  personal  satisfaction  such  as  men  of  hon- 
est purpose  may  be  entitled  to  wear.  "Be 
thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give 
thee  a  crown  of  life!'''  The  ultimate  re- 
ward for  living  right  lies  in  the  increased 
power  and  the  increased  opportunity  which 
will  be  ours  to  live  on  and  to  live  more 
abundantly. 


[142 


IX 

THE  USE  OF  THE  INCOMPLETE 


IX 

THE  USE   OF  THE   INCOMPLETE 


WE  know  in  part."  This  is  not 
the  statement  of  some  indif- 
ferent agnostic,  who,  because 
religious  questions  are  difficult,  insists  that 
he  does  not  know  anything  about  them.  It 
is  not  the  statement  of  a  defiant  infidel, 
who,  because  he  does  not  understand  every- 
thing about  religion,  declares  that  neither 
he  nor  any  one  knows  anything  about  it. 
It  is  not  the  statement  of  one  of  those  hesi- 
tating individuals  who  are  always  trying  to 
steer  a  safe  course  somewhere  between  yes 
and  no,  between  the  right  of  it  and  the  wrong 
of  it;  who  are  never  quite  sure  whether 
there  is  or  is  not  a  God,  but  think  that  the 
truth  lies,  perhaps,  about  halfway  between 
the  two  claims. 

This  man  Paul  was  not  an  agnostic,  nor 
an  infidel,  nor  a  hesitator.     He  knew  certain 


[145] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


things,  he  was  sure  of  them.  He  was 
ready  to  say  so  right  out  loud,  and  to  stand 
up  and  be  cut  in  two  for  them  if  need  be. 
"I  know  whom  I  have  beheved,"  he  cries; 
there  was  no  uncertainty  in  his  mind  on  that 
point.  "I  know  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ"  —  and  it  had  changed  him  from  a 
narrow,  bigoted,  persecuting  Pharisee  into 
one  who  wrote  the  best  hymn  on  love  to  be 
found  in  print  and  who  embodied  the  spirit 
of  it  in  his  daily  conduct.  "I  know  that 
all  things  work  together  for  good  to  them 
that  love  God"  —  and  in  Paul's  case  "all 
things"  included  a  great  deal  of  hardship  and 
persecution,  of  disappointment  and  sorrow, 
but  he  never  wavered  in  his  confidence  that 
some  wise  purpose  was  being  furthered  by  it 
all.  These  and  many  other  things  he  knew. 
"In  part  we  know,"  was  the  way  he  would 
have  placed  his  emphasis  and  the  actual 
content  of  his  knowledge  was  large  indeed. 

He  makes  this  statement  as  an  honest, 
modest,  reasonable  man  face  to  face  with 
spiritual  realities  too  great  for  perfect  com- 
prehension or  final  statement.  His  knowl- 
edge of  them  was  large,  but  they  were  still 
larger.     He  must  have  known  when  he  wrote 


[146 


THE     USE     OF     THE     INCOMPLETE 

those  words  that  he  was  a  man  of  no  mean 
attainments.  He  wrote  a  third  of  tlie  New 
Testament  with  his  own  hand.  He  did  more 
to  shape  Christian  thought  than  any  one 
save  Christ  himself.  He  had  been  "caught 
up  into  the  third  heaven,"  whatever  that 
may  mean.  He  was  the  most  effective 
missionary  of  the  new  faith  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  He  was  a  man  of  marvelous 
reach  and  grasp,  but  face  to  face  with  these 
great  spiritual  realities,  God  and  redemption, 
prayer  and  duty,  immortality  and  the  final 
judgment,  he  frankly  confesses  that  the 
returns  are  not  all  in ;  the  last  words  have  not 
been  said  and  cannot  be  said;  the  full  appre- 
ciation of  these  high  values  has  not  been 
reached.     We  know  in  part. 

We  are  glad  to  find  these  words  on  the 
lips  of  the  w^orld's  greatest  apostle.  They 
are  reassuring  to  those  of  us  who  are  troubled 
by  the  limitations  of  our  own  religious  know^l- 
edge.  They  match  the  mood  of  this  modern 
time  of  questioning  and  unrest  w^iich  is  so 
much  in  evidence  on  the  college  campus  and 
in  university  circles.  They  suggest  that 
finahty  is  much  more  difficult  than  some 
of  the  earlier  generations  in  their  simplicity 

[147] 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


supposed.  One  does  not  find  those  familiar 
words,  ''Finis"  or  "The  End,"  printed  on 
the  last  page  of  a  book  so  commonly  as  in 
other  days.  Even  where  the  author  has 
said  his  say  in  several  volumes,  each  one  as 
bulky  as  a  volume  of  the  "Britannica,"  he 
knows  that  there  is  more  to  be  said.  He 
leaves  the  way  open  without  trying  to  block 
it  by  writing,  "The  End." 

We  are  conscious  that  we  have  not  reached 
the  terminus  on  any  of  the  great  trunk  lines 
of  religious  inquiry.  We  are  scattered  along 
at  various  way  stations,  thankful  for  the  part 
we  know,  grateful  for  progress  made,  but 
confessing  with  Paul  that  we  have  not  at- 
tained, that  we  are  not  made  perfect  either 
in  theory  or  in  practise.  But  whatever 
headway  we  have  made  we  are  determined 
in  the  spirit  of  Paul  to  use  the  part  we  know 
and  press  forward  toward  the  mark  of  the 
prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God.  This  is 
the  dominant  mood  of  the  serious  but  cau- 
tious, inquiring  element  in  modern  life. 
We  are,  therefore,  grateful  for  the  word  of 
this  modest,  reasonable  man,  who  with  all 
his  store  of  spiritual  experience  said  quietly, 
"We  know  in  part." 


[148] 


THE     USE    OF     THE     INCOMPLETE 

We  might  carry  these  words  in  many 
directions  and  find  them  helpful.  Some  of 
us  have  been  greatly  disturbed  as  to  the  doc- 
\ trine  of  Providence.  We  have  been  told 
on  high  authority  that  God  reigns  and  that 
"He  doeth  all  things  well."  When  times 
are  good  we  really  believe  it.  We  see  that 
the  way  of  the  transgressor  is  hard,  as  it 
ought  to  be,  and  that  on  the  whole  the  way 
of  righteousness  is  the  way  of  peace  and 
honor.  We  have  a  comfortable  persuasion 
that  all  things  taken  in  their  completeness 
and  final  outcome  are  working  together  for 
good  to  those  whose  purposes  are  right. 

But  just  when  we  have  gotten  our  doc- 
trine of  Providence  all  snug  we  witness 
something  like  this:  Yonder  a  young  Chris- 
tian mother  dies.  She  was  an  ideal  daughter, 
a  devoted  wife,  and  the  beautiful  mother  of 
children  who  loved  her  and  needed  her  more 
than  they  did  anything  else  on  earth.  But 
with  a  whole  community  of  people,  perhaps, 
praying  for  her  recovery  she  dies,  while 
just  around  the  corner  a  group  of  scamps, 
who  are  making  the  world  w^orse,  rather  than 
better,  live  on,  fat  and  hearty.  And  then 
somehow   our   doctrine   of   Providence,   our 


149 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


belief  as  to  the  reign  of  a  wise  and  good  God, 
receives  a  hard  shock. 

But  we  know  in  part.  We  know  the  use- 
fulness of  that  Kfe  here;  we  do  not  know 
to  what  further  and,  perhaps,  higher  service 
it  has  been  called  there.  We  see  what  has 
been  interrupted  here;  we  do  not  see  what 
has  been  taken  up  further  on.  We  do  not 
know  the  ultimate  effect  of  this  stern  sorrow 
upon  that  household,  the  result  of  this  neces- 
sity for  the  regirding  of  all  their  powers  as 
they  walk  now  in  the  shadow  of  a  great 
bereavement.  We  do  not  even  know  God's 
ultimate  purpose  for  those  scamps  who 
live  on;  the  returns  are  not  all  in  for  them 
either.  We  know  in  part,  and  what  we 
know,  taking  human  life  broadly,  is  so 
reassuring  that  we  are  willing  to  trust  God 
and  walk  on  by  faith. 

Ships  in  Norway,  entering  the  great  fiords, 
sometimes  sail  so  close  to  the  cliffs  that  one 
can  stand  on  deck  and  almost  lay  his  hand 
upon  the  face  of  the  rock.  When  one  cap- 
tain was  asked  about  it,  he  said,  "That  which 
is  in  sight  indicates  what  is  out  of  sight. 
The  slant  above  the  water-line  indicates 
the  slant  below  and  we  are  perfectly  safe." 

[1501 


THE     U8E     OF     THE    INCOMPLETE 

The  general  slant  of  God's  dealings  with  us, 
taking  the  facts  we  know  in  the  total  impres- 
sion they  make  as  to  his  wisdom  and  justice, 
is  such  that  we  are  prepared  to  trust  him 
below  the  water-line.  Therefore  when  I 
cannot  in  some  diflficult  situation  make  out 
his  ultimate  purpose  with  the  naked  eye, 
I  fall  back  upon  my  confidence  in  his  moral 
character. 

As  to  this  faith  in  the  divine  integrity  no 
serious,  observant  man  should  remain  in 
doubt.  It  is  a  faith  which  rests  upon  a  wide 
induction  of  fact,  vaster  by  far  than  my 
own  experience  of  his  dealings  with  me. 
It  is  like  repeating  an  axiom  to  say  that  the 
creature  does  not  rise  above  the  Creator. 
If  men  at  any  time,  anyw^here  are  good, 
there  must  be  goodness  in  the  Creator  of 
those  men,  goodness  in  the  force  or  forces 
lying  back  of  them,  call  those  forces  by  what 
name  we  may.  And  if  the  stream  of  hu- 
man goodness  has  been  widening,  deepening, 
flowing  more  strongly  as  the  ages  have  come 
and  gone,  it  points  back  to  character  and  pur- 
pose in  the  One  who  created  the  stream  itself. 
That  goodness  in  man  argues  goodness  in 
God,  while  badness  in  man  does  not  argue 

[  151 1 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


badness  in  God  is  plain,  in  that  sane  men 
everywhere  regard  goodness  as  normal,  while 
badness  is  abnormal. 

And  look  at  the  swelling  tide  of  human 
goodness  down  through  the  ages!  Look  at 
Livingstone  laying  down  his  life  to  carry  light 
into  the  dark  continent!  Look  at  Cromwell 
fearing  God  and  none  else,  neither  king  nor 
pope,  neither  nobles  nor  bishops,  and  giving 
his  life  that  he  might  win  constitutional 
and  religious  freedom  for  the  English-speak- 
ing race!  Look  at  Lincoln  counting  not  his 
life  dear  if  he  might  serve  the  cause  of  the 
Union  and  the  interests  of  his  brothers  in 
bonds!  Look  at  the  vast  array  of  human 
goodness  massing  itself  in  saints  and  seers, 
in  heroes  and  martyrs,  in  teachers  and 
mothers,  going  forth  not  to  be  ministered 
unto,  but  to  minister,  giving  their  lives  for 
the  betterment  of  the  world!  Look  at  it 
all  and  then  ask  yourself  if  you  can  believe 
for  one  moment  that  all  this  goodness  orig- 
inated itself,  persisted,  and  increased  in  oppo- 
sition to  the  will  of  the  Creator  or  in  the  face 
of  his  moral  indifference  or  without  crea- 
tive goodness  in  him!  The  claim  would  be 
monstrous!     This    wide    induction    of    fact 


152 


THE    USE    OF    THE    INCOMPLETE 

begets  a  profound  faith  in  the  moral  charac- 
ter of  God  and  when  we  cannot  see  we  trust, 
because  as  to  the  final  meaning  of  many 
strange  experiences  we  know  in  part. 

Take  the  matter  of  prayer  and  the  way  it 
enters  into  the  formation  of  character  and 
the  shaping  of  events.  We  know  that 
prayer  registers  a  definite  and  wholesome 
influence  on  many  a  life.  Those  who  loudly 
assert  that  virtue  and  vice  are  as  purely 
physical  products  as  sugar  and  vitriol, 
that  all  right  action  and  wrong  action  can 
be  accounted  for  on  material  grounds,  have 
not  made  out  their  case,  they  have  not 
begun  to  make  it  out.  There  is  something 
unseen,  mysterious,  but  real  and  powerful, 
which  impels  certain  people  to  love  the 
unlovely,  to  make  sacrifices  for  the  thought- 
less and  ungrateful,  to  stand  firm  in  the  path 
of  duty  when  it  is  anything  but  the  line  of 
least  resistance.  The  love  of  right,  the  sense 
of  obligation,  the  habit  of  adherence  to  prin- 
ciple, all  these  are  as  real  as  granite.  But 
the  forces  which  make  them  strong  are  spirit- 
ual, and  these  forces  receive  constant  reen- 
forcement  from  the  habit  of  prayer. 

This  part  we  know.     We  have  seen  the 

f  153  1 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


hearts  of  men  turned  from  anger  to  love, 
from  unholy  to  holy  purpose,  from  weakness 
to  strong  resolve  by  prayer.  We  have 
seen  home  life  made  sweeter  because  once 
at  least  in  every  twenty -four  hours  the  mem- 
bers of  the  household  came  together  and 
knelt  before  God,  confessing  their  faults, 
asking  his  guidance  and  allowing  that  which 
was  true  and  right  within  them  to  grow  by 
its  communion  with  him  who  is  altogether 
true  and  right.  Any  sensible  man  would 
feel  that  his  life,  his  property,  his  family 
were  all  safer  in  a  community  where  men 
prayed,  than  in  one  where  they  only  used 
the  name  of  God  profanely.  This  part  we 
know  about  prayer. 

But  as  to  the  ultimate  effect  of  it,  the  final 
philosophy  of  it,  the  precise  way  in  which 
the  finite  spirit  becomes  a  colaborer  with 
the  Infinite  Spirit  in  shaping  events,  I  freely 
confess  that  there  is  a  great  deal  which  I  do 
not  understand.  I  know  in  part,  but  the 
part  I  know  is  so  full  of  blessed  and  beauti- 
ful results  that  I  want  my  prayer  for  the 
coming  of  God's  kingdom,  for  the  doing  of 
his  will  on  earth,  for  the  gift  of  bread  for 
the   daily   need,    for   forgiveness,    and   final 


154 


THE    USE    OF     TFIE    INCOMPLETE 

deliverance  from  evil  —  I  want  that  prayer 
to  go  up,  winging  its  way  to  the  throne 
backed  by  all  the  faith  and  hope  and  love  I 
can  put  into  it.  And  I  am  not  troubled  by 
the  fact  that  I  cannot  explain  all  the  grounds 
of  my  confidence,  for,  like  Paul,  I  know  in 
part. 

Take  the  matter  of  the  future  life!  There 
is  much  here  we  would  like  to  know.  What 
are  our  loved  ones  who  have  gone  on  doing 
now.^  Are  they  witnesses  of  the  blunders 
and  the  failures  we  make  here?  Just  how 
is  right  rewarded  and  wrong  punished  when 
the  two  are  so  intricately  interwoven?  No 
man  is  so  white  a  sheep  but  that  there  are 
patches  of  goat  about  him  here  and  there. 
No  man  is  so  bad  but  that  there  is  some  good 
in  him  if  we  observingly  distil  it  out.  And 
what  of  the  final  outcome  —  can  good  people 
be  happily  content  if  the  sinful  souls  they 
loved  are  in  conscious  pain  or  even  if  they 
have  been  remorselessly  wiped  off  the  slate 
of  existence?  Is  it  too  much  to  hope  that 
God's  persuasions  to  righteousness  being 
infinite  may  prove  irresistible  and  so  at  last 
successful  in  every  case?  So  men  and  women 
who  have  loved  and  lost  those  who  passed 

[155] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


out  of  this  world  without  a  sign  of  genuine 
repentance  or  of  saving  faith  have  queried 
ever.  A  child  can  ask  more  questions  here 
in  five  minutes  than  all  the  philosophers 
and  theologians  on  earth  can  answer  in  as 
many  years. 

We  know  in  part!  We  cannot  measure 
off  the  streets  of  the  new  Jerusalem  in  kilo- 
meters. We  cannot  describe  its  attractions 
in  any  kind  of  Baedeker.  We  cannot  lay 
out  a  detailed  program  of  God's  dealings 
with  the  good  and  the  bad  people  of  earth 
in  all  the  unending  years.  Nor  is  there 
any  obligation  whatsoever  upon  us  to  under- 
take the  construction  of    such  a   program. 

We  know  in  part  and  the  part  we  know  is 
something  like  this:  I  feel  a  profound  con- 
fidence that  I  shall  live  on  after  death.  The 
grounds  of  my  hope  are  many.  The  mass  of 
unreason  and  injustice  I  would  have  left 
upon  my  hands  unexplained  and  unexplain- 
able  if  I  were  to  undertake  to  deny  the  truth 
of  immortality  is  one.  The  all  but  universal 
and  persistent  desire  of  men  for  future  life 
is  another.  Somehow  the  integrity  of  the 
universe  is  such  that  it  does  not  develop 
in  men  normal,  wide-spread,  and  persistent 

[  156  1 


THE     USE     OF     THE    I  N  G  O  M  1>  L  E  T  E 

desires  unless  there  is  somewhere  to  be  found 
a  corresponding  satisfaction  for  such  desires 
standing  over  against  them.  The  fact  that 
the  clear  visions  and  the  bright  hopes  of  the 
best  poets  and  prophets  the  world  has 
known  have  been  on  the  side  of  immortality 
means  much.  The  seers  have  sung  and  the 
prophets  have  uttered  their  high  anticipa- 
tions by  the  power  of  an  endless  life.  The 
words  of  the  supreme  figure  in  history, 
Jesus  Christ,  as  to  the  truth  of  immortality, 
mean  still  more.  He  saw  clearly,  spoke 
wisely,  lived  divinely,  and  I  cannot  believe 
that  here  he  reared  his  expectations  on  a 
fundamental  mistake. 

It  ought  to  be  remembered  that  for  those 
who  affirm  and  for  those  who  deny  the  truth 
of  immortality,  it  is  alike  a  matter  of  moral 
faith  because  no  convincing  demonstration 
has  been  made  out  either  for  or  against. 
The  men  who  deny  immortality  are  not 
opposing  knowledge  to  faith;  they  are  only 
meeting  a  positive  faith  with  a  negative 
one.  But  inasmuch  as  reason  and  experi- 
ence, the  best  in  literature  and  the  One  who 
has  taken  the  moral  government  of  the  world 
upon  his  shoulders  as  none  other  ever  did, 

[157] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


stand  so  strongly  upon  the  side  of  the  posi- 
tive faith,  I  feel  confident  of  an  unbroken 
life. 

As  to  the  final  judgment,  I  know  that 
righteousness  and  love  which  are  useful  and 
beautiful  here  will  be  useful  and  beautiful 
always  and  everywhere;  the  clearer  the 
light  in  which  they  stand  the  more  their 
glory  will  be  revealed.  I  know  that  sin  and 
selfishness  are  mean  and  hateful  here,  and 
they  will  be  mean  and  hateful  everywhere; 
the  clearer  the  light  in  which  they  stand 
the  more  their  hatefulness  will  be  manifest. 
What  shall  be  their  final  fate  I  do  not  under- 
take to  say.  We  know  in  part,  but  the  clear 
prospects  of  the  life  to  come,  where  righteous- 
ness and  love  shall  have  their  freer  chance 
to  be  and  to  do,  where  sin  and  selfishness 
shall  meet  with  more  awful  rebuke,  are 
sufficient  to  stimulate  right  action  and  to 
give  warning  to  those  who  would  identify 
their  destinies  with  evil.  As  to  the  rest,  in 
the  incompleteness  of  our  knowledge,  we 
may  safely  leave  it  to  the  wisdom  and  the 
justice  of  God. 

I  might  carry  this  idea  in  other  directions, 
but  let  me  turn  at  once  to  the  other  phase 

[1581 


THE    USE    OF    THE    INCOMPLETE 

of  the  topic.  In  part  we  know,  and  the  part 
we  know  is  naturally  the  part  we  use.  We 
wish  that  we  knew  more.  We  hope  to  know 
more  some  time.  In  the  meantime  we  recog- 
nize that  the  way  to  make  progress  along 
that  line  is  to  use  the  part  we  already  know. 
In  almost  any  direction,  unless  it  be  pure 
mathematics  or  formal  logic,  our  knowledge, 
even  in  the  sophomore  year,  stops  a  long 
way  this  side  of  complete  understanding. 
No  man  knows  the  length  and  breadth, 
the  height  and  depth  of  his  wife's  love  for 
him,  if  she  is  a  good  woman.  Some  part 
of  it  he  knows,  but  the  love  she  might 
show  in  some  emergency,  nursing  him 
through  a  long  illness,  sharing  with  him  some 
painful  experience,  bearing  with  him  some 
heavy  burden  —  that  fuller  love  he  does 
not  know  and  cannot  know  until  the  time 
comes  for  its  manifestation.  But  the  part 
he  knows  about  his  wife's  love  for  him  is 
the  part  he  uses  and  the  very  thought  of  how 
beautiful  it  is  and  of  the  unrevealed  capacity 
it  may  contain  for  willing  and  joyous  sacri- 
fice on  his  behalf,  makes  him  feel  that  he 
ought  to  be  a  better  man  to  be  deserving  of 
it.     Thus  he  moves  along  in  that  part  of 

[159] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


the  strength  and  beauty  of  a  woman's  love 
which  he  knows,  allowing  the  fuller  knowl- 
edge of  it  to  come  as  it  may.  And  this  is 
precisely  the  attitude  of  the  reasonably 
religious  man  —  those  realities  with  which 
he  deals,  God  and  redemption,  prayer  and 
duty,  immortality  and  the  final  judgment, 
are  confessedly  too  great  for  final  statement, 
but  he  knows  something  about  them  and 
the  part  he  knows  is  the  part  he  uses. 

Next  door  to  my  home  I  have  two  little 
neighbors,  boys  of  three  and  five.  They 
are  close  friends  of  mine  and  they  have  taught 
me  much.  Their  father  is  a  physician,  a 
busy,  useful,  Christian  man.  The  boys 
understand  their  father's  life  "in  part." 
They  know  that  he  is  a  doctor  and  that  he 
goes  to  see  sick  people  and  make  them  well. 
But  as  to  the  methods  he  employs  and  the 
remedies  he  uses  they  know  nothing  at  all. 
They  know  in  a  dim  sort  of  way  that  he 
makes  the  money  which  pays  the  bills  and 
keeps  them  in  a  home  full  of  comfort  and 
beauty.  But  as  to  his  financial  standing, 
his  investments,  and  his  prospects,  they 
know  nothing.  They  know  that  along  with 
the    hearty    good-will    which    he    feels    for 


160 


THE    USE    OF    THE    INCOMPLETE 

everybody,  he  loves  their  mother  and  them 
supremely;  but  how  he  came  to  love  that 
particular  woman  rather  than  some  other 
one,  and  how  they  were  born  of  that  love,  or 
how  far  that  love  might  go  in  defending  and 
providing  for  them,  they  do  not  concern 
themselves  for  one  moment.  They  know 
their  father's  love  in  part. 

But  the  part  they  know  is  the  part  they 
use.  The}^  live  in  their  father's  house;  they 
sit  at  his  table;  they  greet  him  with  a  shout 
when  he  comes  in  from  his  practise.  They 
obey  him  and  trust  him  and  think  he  is  the 
best  man  in  the  world.  Thfey  climb  up  into 
his  lap  and  talk  to  him,  not  about  his  prac- 
tise, but  about  their  own  small  affairs,  their 
tops,  their  marbles,  their  little  wagon  —  as  he 
wants  them  to  do.  He  meets  them  always 
on  their  own  ground  and  deals  with  them  in 
the  terms  and  interests  of  their  own  lives. 
Thus  my  two  little  friends  live  and  grow, 
knowing  their  father's  life  in  part. 

"Except  we  become  as  little  children'* 
in  the  house  of  our  Father,  whose  total  life 
exceeds  our  present  comprehension,  whose 
plans  and  purposes  for  us  are  too  high  for 
complete  understanding,  whose  outlook  for 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


US  is  vaster  every  way  than  our  own  outlook 
—  "except  we  become  as  little  children  we 
shall  in  no  wise  enter  his  kingdom."  But 
if  we  take  the  part  we  know  and  use  it, 
acting  on  it  and  living  by  it,  we  will  be 
treading  the  way  which  leads  to  a  fuller 
and  more  blessed  experience  of  the  Father's 
wisdom  and  love  as  surely  as  my  two  small 
friends  are  doing  as  they  grow  up  toward 
their  manhood  in  their  father's  house. 

In  how  many  ways  Jesus  made  plain  this 
duty  of  utihzing  the  near  and  the  familiar 
when  we  would  learn  the  remote !  He  seemed 
to  realize  that  religion  would  be  crusted  over 
with  misconceptions  so  that  ordinary  people 
would  find  it  hard  to  get  at;  that  some  men 
would  write  big  dull  books  about  it,  which 
no  one  would  want  to  read;  that  other  men 
in  talking  about  it  would  use  words  which 
would  not  go  into  a  suit-case  without  being 
folded  twice,  thus  confusing  the  people.  For 
that  reason,  perhaps,  he  made  his  own  teach- 
ing simpler  than  that  of  any  one  whose  words 
stand  recorded  in  Holy  Writ. 

He  stood  once  at  midnight  among  the 
trees  talking  with  a  thoughtful  man  as  to 
certain  aspects  of  the  religious  life.     "How 


[162 


E    USE    OF    THE    INCOMPLETE 


can  these  things  be  ?  "  the  man  asked .  ' '  How 
can  a  man  be  born  when  he  is  old?"  Just 
then  the  wind  rustled  the  leaves  at  his  side 
and  Jesus  remarked:  "The  wind  bloweth 
where  it  listeth.  You  hear  the  sound  thereof, 
but  you  cannot  tell  whence  it  cometh  or 
whither  it  goeth."  We  cannot  tell  why  the 
wind  blows  one  day  from  the  north  and  we 
have  cold,  another  day  from  the  south  and 
we  have  heat,  another  day  from  the  east 
and  we  have  rain.  We  cannot  explain  satis- 
factorily many  of  the  mysteries  connected 
with  the  wind.  But  a  man  who  is  a  fisher- 
man can  put  up  his  sail  and  fill  it  with  this 
wind  which  is  such  a  mystery.  He  can  sail 
out  through  the  Golden  Gate  and  come  back 
in  the  evening  with  a  boatload  of  fish  for 
the  needs  of  his  family  and  for  other  hungry 
men.  The  wind  that  fills  his  sail  he  knows, 
but  the  origin,  the  ultimate  destiny,  and  all 
the  relationships  it  sustains  to  the  other 
forces  in  the  universe  he  does  not  know.  The 
part  he  knows,  however,  is  the  part  he  uses 
by  relating  it  to  his  own  life.  And  this  is 
the  act  of  a  man  of  sense  in  matters  spirit- 
ual as  well.  He  knows  the  life  of  the  Infi- 
nite Spirit  in  part,  but  he  uses  the  part  he 


[163 


THE    CAP    AND    GOW 


knows  by  relating  it  helpfully  to  his  own 
life. 

When  we  start  in  after  that  fashion  it  is 
a  straight  course.  The  boy  begins  his  study 
of  mathematics  by  learning  to  count  ten  — 
one,  two,  three,  four,  five,  six,  seven,  eight, 
nine,  ten.  He  moves  straight  along  by  that 
path  until,  with  these  same  ten  figures,  he  is 
computing  the  courses  the  planets  take 
and  measuring  the  distances  of  the  fixed 
stars.  He  begins  his  study  of  literature  by 
learning  his  letters,  a,  b,  c,  etc.  By  and  by, 
using  these  same  familiar  letters,  he  is  making 
his  way  through  the  intricacies  of  "Hamlet" 
and  "Macbeth";  he  is  walking  with  Emerson 
and  Hegel  across  the  fields  of  philosophy. 
He  begins  his  study  of  music  by  learning  the 
elementary  sounds,  do,  re,  mi,  fa,  sol,  la, 
si,  do.  Presently,  with  these  same  tones,  he 
is  singing  in  a  great  chorus  which  renders 
"The  Messiah"  or  playing  his  instrument 
in  some  orchestra  which  is  producing  the 
Fifth  Symphony  of  Beethoven.  In  every 
situation  in  life  progress  is  made  not  by  being 
appalled  over  the  amount  we  do  not  know, 
or  by  vainly  wishing  we  knew  more,  but  by 
taking  the  part  we  know,  relating  it  to  our 

[164  1 


THE    USE    OF    THE    INCOMPLETE 

lives,  and  making  it  the  instrument  of  gain- 
ing that  fuller  knowledge. 

God  is  greater  than  any  wise  and  good 
father  but  not  different.  Carry  the  love 
of  a  wise  and  good  father  up  to  the  nth  degree 
and  you  have  the  love  of  God  for  his  people. 
The  life  of  the  spirit  is  nobler  than  the  life 
of  the  flesh,  but  it  stands  closely  related; 
it  is  a  life  which  hungers  after  righteousness, 
thirsts  for  the  living  God,  and  grows  strong 
by  exercising  itself  in  useful  service.  Heaven 
is  finer  and  purer  than  earth,  but  not  unlike. 
It  was  for  the  Jew  a  "New  Jerusalem," 
and  it  is  for  every  man  a  "new  — "  whatever 
may  be  the  name  of  the  city  where  he  dwells. 
It  is  the  ordinary  life  ennobled  and  glorified 
by  the  infusion  of  a  finer  spirit.  The  glori- 
ous fulfilment  comes  through  the  richer  com- 
binations and  the  fuller  development  of  the 
simpler  parts  we  know  already. 

I  wish  I  could  persuade  the  college  man 
who  has  never  entered  into  an  open,  joyous. 
Christian  life  to  just  begin.  There  are  many 
things  which  he  does  not  understand  nor, 
perhaps,  believe.  We  will  put  them  aside 
for  the  moment,  not  ignoring  them,  but 
postponing    their    consideration.     Let    him 

[165] 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


take  the  part  he  knows,  the  moral  impera- 
tive of  living  the  best  life  one  sees,  and  no 
finer  life  than  that  of  the  Christian  can  be 
named;  the  necessity  for  some  competent 
guide,  and  none  better  than  Jesus  of  Naza- 
reth has  thus  far  appeared;  the  clearly  ascer- 
tained benefits  to  be  gained  by  trust  and 
obedience;  the  helpful  reactions  which  come 
through  prayer  and  the  reading  of  the  Bible; 
the  manifest  advantage  of  cherishing  the 
hope  of  a  future  life  and  of  facing  squarely 
upon  the  fact  that  what  we  sow  we  reap. 
All  this  he  knows!  Let  the  part  he  knows 
be  the  part  he  uses.  If  he  will  only  act 
upon  it,  building  it  into  his  own  life  and  fol- 
lowing where  it  leads,  he  will  be  on  his  way 
toward  the  place  where  he  will  know  even 
as  he  is  known. 


166 


X 

FIGHTING  THE  STARS 


X 

FIGHTING  THE   STARS 


IN  an  ancient  song  we  find  this  striking 
statement,  "The  stars  in  their 
courses  fought  against  Sisera."  This 
is  poetry.  It  must  be  dealt  with  according 
to  the  rules  which  govern  poetical  expres- 
sion. The  plain  prose  facts  underlying  the 
statement  were  these:  The  northern  tribes 
of  Israel  were  being  oppressed  by  the  warlike 
Canaanites  of  that  region.  Israelites  liv- 
ing on  the  outskirts  were  frequently  slaugh- 
tered until  certain  villages  had  been  entirely 
destroyed.  The  oppression  became  so  bit- 
ter that  it  was  not  safe  for  an  Israelite  to 
travel  the  ordinary  roads.  "In  the  days 
of  Shamgar  the  highways  were  unoccupied, 
and  the  people  walked  through  by-paths." 
They  were  in  constant  fear  for  their  lives  and 
the  situation  at  length  became  unendurable. 
Then  there  came  an  armed  revolt  of  the 


[169 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


Israelites  against  their  oppressors.  Ten 
thousand  men  under  the  leadership  of  Deb- 
orah and  Barak  went  out  to  give  battle  in 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon.  The  commander  of 
the  opposing  army  was  Sisera.  He  had  been 
uniformly  victorious  over  the  Israelites 
chiefly  by  his  use  of  chariots  and  war-horses, 
riding  his  enemies  down  before  they  could 
accomplish  anything  with  their  slings  and 
arrows.  And  into  the  famous  battle  referred 
to  in  the  song  the  author  says,  "Sisera 
brought  nine  hundred  chariots  of  iron"  to 
fight  against  the  army  of  Israel. 

But  just  as  the  battle  opened  there  came 
a  fierce  storm  converting  the  black  loam  of 
that  fertile  field  into  a  morass.  The  heavy 
war-horses  and  huge  chariots  were  unable 
to  charge.  The  song  pictures  them  as  floun- 
dering, helpless,  in  the  deep  mud.  The  cold 
rain  turned  gradually  into  sleet  and  the  sleet 
driven  by  a  fierce  wind  directly  into  the 
faces  of  the  advancing  Canaanites  made  their 
use  of  sling  and  spear  comparatively  ineffec- 
tive. On  the  other  hand,  the  Israelites, 
with  the  storm  at  their  backs  and  with  their 
courage  heightened  by  the  feeling  that  all 
the   circumstances  of  the  situation  were  in 


170 


FIGHTING    THE    STARS 


their  favor,  fought  splendidly  and  success- 
fully. They  slaughtered  the  helpless  men 
who  were  trying  in  vain  to  use  the  heavy 
chariots;  they  put  to  flight  the  foot  soldiers 
who  could  not  properly  defend  themselves 
with  the  storm  beating  in  their  faces,  and 
thus  they  w^on  a  notable  victory  over  the 
army  of  Sisera. 

When  the  Israelites  came  to  add  up  the 
forces  which  entered  into  the  result,  they 
were  not  so  short-sighted  as  to  fancy  that 
their  own  right  arms  had  gotten  them  the 
victory.  They  saw  that  certain  other  forces 
which  they  had  not  created,  which  they  did 
not  in  any  wise  control,  had  entered  deci- 
sively into  the  determination  of  the  issue. 
"The  Lord  discomfited  Sisera,  and  all  his 
chariots,"  they  said.  *'The  stars  in  their 
courses  fought  against  Sisera."  The  wind 
and  the  rain,  the  hail  and  the  sleet,  coming 
down  out  of  the  skies  by  no  act  of  theirs,  had 
lined  up  with  them  as  effective  allies;  and  as 
their  eyes  ran  over  the  complete  muster  roll, 
the  forces  from  above  combining  with  their 
own  determined  valor,  they  knew  that  Sis- 
era was  foredoomed  to  defeat  because  he  had 
been  fighting  against  the  stars. 


171] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


The  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against 
Sisera  —  this  is  poetry !  It  is  a  bold  Ht- 
erary  statement  of  a  splendid  moral  truth. 
In  the  long  run  the  forces  of  earth  and  sky 
are  alike  hostile  to  the  low  type  of  life  which 
Sisera  represents.  Cruelty,  oppression,  in- 
humanity, are  doomed  to  defeat.  Individ- 
uals or  nations  cultivating  those  qualities 
are  fighting  the  stars,  and  the  stars  will  be 
too  much  for  them.  As  it  was  with  Sisera, 
so  it  is  now  and  ever  shall  be,  world  without 
end!  Those  evils  are  sometimes  victorious 
in  a  skirmish;  now  and  then  they  win  a  battle, 
but  the  war  goes  always  against  them. 
When  the  end  comes  and  the  articles  of  ca- 
pitulation are  signed,  they  are  to  be  found 
with  Sisera,  biting  the  dust.  Forces,  human 
and  divine,  seen  and  unseen,  are  perpetually 
at  war  with  wrong-doing  and  the  combina- 
tion of  all  these  mighty  energies  makes  the 
outcome  inevitable.  The  man  who,  in  any 
wise,  undertakes  to  live  a  wrong  life  is  under- 
taking to  fight  the  stars. 

The  presence  of  universal  moral  forces 
is  here  symbolized.  All  about  us  are  famil- 
iar forces  which  we  did  not  originate,  which 
we  do  not  control  —  the  light  and  the  heat 


172  ] 


FIGHTING    TUE    STARS 


of  the  sun,  the  power  of  gravitation,  the 
movements  of  the  winds,  and  the  pulsating 
tides.  We  cannot  control  them;  we  can 
only  adjust  ourselves  to  their  movements 
and  wisely  cooperate  with  them  for  certain 
ends.  Even  while  I  am  speaking  this  huge 
mass  under  our  feet  is  whirling  us  swiftly 
onward,  covering  the  w^hole  twenty-five 
thousand  miles  in  a  single  twenty-four  hours. 
Scientific  men  thus  far  have  nothing  to  offer 
as  to  how  it  gained  its  initial  velocity; 
we  find  it  moving  and  it  carries  us  with  it 
whether  w^e  will  or  no. 

This  is  a  symbol !  There  are  other  forces, 
unseen  but  mighty,  moving  the  race  up  out 
of  darkness  into  great  and  ever  greater 
light.  With  all  its  groping  and  stumbling 
the  race  has  never  been  allowed  to  lose  its 
way  altogether.  Yesterday  it  thought  as  a 
child  and  understood  as  a  child;  today  it 
puts  away  childish  things  and  knows  in  part; 
tomorrow  it  will  know  still  "in  part,"  but  a 
larger  part.  And  it  is  the  sublime  convic- 
tion of  serious  men  that  it  is  on  its  way  to 
know  even  as  it  is  known.  This  movement 
is  as  resistless  as  the  motion  of  the  planets. 

The  race  is  also  making  headway  in  right- 


173 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


eousness.  Certain  forms  of  evil  which  once 
stood  out  naked  and  unashamed  have  been 
driven  into  rat-holes.  Presently  these  holes 
will  be  stopped  up  from  the  top  and  those 
forms  of  evil  will  be  seen  no  more.  The 
power  of  conscience  grows  and  its  dominion 
widens.  Matthew  Arnold,  speaking  as  a 
poet,  said,  "There  is  a  power  not  ourselves 
which  makes  for  righteousness."  Herbert 
Spencer,  speaking  as  a  philosopher,  said, 
"There  is  an  infinite  and  eternal  energy 
from  which  all  things  proceed,"  and  in  his 
judgment  it  was,  on  the  whole,  friendly  to 
righteousness.  The  Psalmist,  speaking  as  a 
religious  man,  said,  "The  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether,  and 
in  keeping  of  them  there  is  great  reward." 
It  does  not  matter  what  words  are  used; 
it  all  amounts  to  the  same  thing.  The  very 
stars  are  symbols  to  us,  as  they  were  to  this 
writer  of  old,  of  forces  unseen,  august,  cosmic, 
which  are  insistently  set  upon  righteousness. 
Sisera  and  all  the  horde  of  wrong-doers  are 
compelled  to  look  that  fact  in  the  face. 

The  antagonism  of  these  universal  forces 
spells  defeat  for  those  who  are  willing  to  do 
wrong.     Sometimes   the  letters   which   spell 

[1741 


FIGHTING    THE    STARS 


out  defeat  are  formally  arranged  in  order; 
at  other  times  the  letters  must  be  selected 
from  a  mass  of  confusing  details,  but  they 
are  there,  and  they  spell  the  same  word, 
*' defeat."  The  stars  never  tarry  long  in 
bringing  in  their  verdict  upon  the  coarser 
sins  of  the  flesh,  murder  and  adultery, 
stealing  and  lying,  drunkenness  and  glut- 
tony. But  the  operation  of  this  law  reaches 
all  the  way  down  to  those  subtler  sins  of 
pride  and  envy,  meanness  and  selfishness, 
moral  indifference  and  spiritual  neglect  — 
all  these  in  their  final  outcome  make  for 
misery  and  discontent  as  surely  as  two  and 
two  make  four.  No  man  ever  outwitted 
or  vanquished  the  stars,  no  man  ever  will. 
The  sun  rises  when  it  is  due,  no  matter  how 
he  chooses  to  set  his  individual  clock,  no 
matter  what  lies  he  may  tell  in  his  partic- 
ular almanac.  No  man  ever  outwitted  the 
moral  order  of  the  universe  which  is  august 
and  irresistible  in  its  ongoings.  He  may  have 
sought  out  many  devices,  but  at  last  he  is 
compelled  to  settle  by  the  books.  He  must 
reap  what  he  has  sown,  no  matter  how  ter- 
rible the  harvest  may  be. 

Go  through  any  modern  city  with  your 


175] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


eyes  open  and  you  will  find  this  statement 
about  Sisera  written  out  in  a  plain  hand. 
You  will  find  people,  some  of  them  well- 
dressed,  some  in  rags,  with  their  hearts 
draped  in  wretchedness  and  despair.  Poor 
deluded  mortals,  they  have  been  butting 
their  brains  out  against  the  moral  corner- 
stones of  the  universe  in  the  vain  hope  that 
possibly  the  way  of  the  transgressor  might 
not  be  hard  for  them.  Some  by  intemper- 
ance and  some  fly  licentiousness,  some  by 
sly  dishonesty  and  some  by  cold-hearted 
selfishness  —  the  roads  to  ruin  are  various, 
and  men  travel  them  all!  Here  they  come 
at  last,  bruised,  battered,  and  broken !  They 
have  been  fighting  the  stars  with  the  usual 
result.  If  here  and  there  one  keeps  his  head 
up  and  his  face  like  polished  brass,  thinking 
he  may  escape  the  same  ugly  fate,  you  have 
only  to  wait  for  a  time  to  see  him  with  his 
face  broken  and  his  heart  crushed  like  the 
rest. 

Here  are  two  young  men  at  college,  one 
of  them  living  a  true  life,  maintaining  good 
habits,  keeping  himself  hard  at  work,  cultivat- 
ing the  right  sort  of  friends !  The  other  young 
fellow  keeps  his  lungs  drenched  with  ciga- 


176 


V^','"  :^i5^ 


FIGHTING    THE    STARS 


rette  smoke,  his  brain  drugged  with  alcohol; 
he  seeks  out  the  shady  places  in  the  life  of 
the  city  and  cultivates  the  refuse;  he  loafs 
when  he  ought  to  be  at  work.  You  can 
tell  at  a  glance  which  one  will  be  sitting  in 
the  directors'  meeting  or  in  some  similar  place 
of  responsibility  twenty  years  from  now,  and 
which  one  wull  be  out  somew^here  on  a  high 
stool  or  tramping  the  streets  periodically  in 
search  of  a  job,  wondering  why  his  luck  has 
been  against  him.  There  is  no  luck  about 
it.  He  enlisted  in  the  great  army  of  fools 
who,  under  the  leadership  of  Sisera,  are  un- 
dertaking to  fight  the  stars.  Certain  habits, 
certain  courses  of  action,  certain  aspirations 
bring  honor,  joy,  advancement;  certain  other 
courses  of  action  bring  just  the  reverse.  It 
is  all  as  sure  as  the  movement  of  the  planets; 
it  comes  according  to  law  equally  unyielding. 
The  ultimate  well-being  of  any  life  is 
secured  through  cooperation  with  those 
forces  symbolized  by  the  stars.  I  was  on 
the  Mediterranean  once  on  my  way  from 
Italy  to  Egypt  w^hen  off  the  coast  of  Crete 
our  ship  ran  into  a  terrible  storm.  We 
were  beaten  and  tossed,  for  the  wind  was 
contrary.     An    accident   made   it   necessary 

[1771 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


to  lay  to  for  several  hours  while  the  waves 
dashed  over  the  highest  decks.  In  the 
absence  of  either  sun  or  stars,  exact  reckon- 
ing was  lost,  but  toward  midnight  of  the 
second  day  the  storm  broke  and  presently 
the  stars  shone  out,  here  and  there,  in  the 
irregular  patches  of  the  sky.  Then  the  first 
oflScer  appeared  on  deck  with  his  instruments 
and  soon  he  knew  exactly  where  we  were  on 
the  face  of  the  troubled  waters.  All  uncer- 
tainty was  over;  we  were  sailing  by  the  stars 
and  the  next  day  we  were  casting  anchor 
off  the  coast  of  Egypt.  The  motion  of  the 
ship  and  the  tossing  of  the  waves  were  un- 
certain, but  the  movement  of  the  stars  was 
sure. 

Our  safety  in  the  whole  cruise  of  life 
depends  upon  the  adjustment  of  our  move- 
ments to  those  universal  forces  which  enfold 
us.  My  watch,  carried  though  it  is  in  my 
individual  pocket,  keeps  step  with  the  stars 
so  that  I  could  show  you  where  each  hand 
will  be  tomorrow  morning  when  the  sun 
comes  up  over  the  horizon.  And  our  pur- 
poses, our  affections,  and  our  wills  are  to 
be  similarly  adjusted  so  that  they  shall 
keep  step  with  God's  infinite  will  and  pur- 


178 


FIG  11  TING    THE    STARS 


pose  for  us.  Those  universal  forces  of  love 
and  grace,  of  forgiveness  and  redemption, 
of  guidance  and  comfort,  to  which  in  all 
ages  men  have  learned  to  look,  they  are  all 
ours  if  we  will  only  use  them.  And  when 
we  learn  to  use  them  aright  they  bring 
peace,  and  strength,  and  joy. 

There  was  the  sense  of  an  adequate  hori- 
zon, then,  in  the  words  of  this  ancient  poet 
as  he  stood  that  night  on  the  field  of  battle 
looking  up  at  the  stars.  The  wind  and  the 
rain,  the  hail  and  the  sleet  had  all  aided  the 
Israelites  in  winning  the  victory.  The  very 
skies  seemed  to  be  interested  in  that  moral 
struggle  there  on  the  plain  of  Esdraelon. 
And  he  was  correct  —  the  stars  helped; 
they  always  help;  they  fight  perpetually  in 
their  own  appointed  way  on  the  side  of  right. 

You  may  trust  the  forces  which  they  sym- 
bolize! You  may  work  out  your  own  high- 
est well-being  in  joyous  confidence,  for  God 
is  working  within  you  toward  the  same  great 
end!  You  need  have  no  doubt  about  it, 
for  the  evidence  is  plain.  Heroes  and  mar- 
tyrs lay  down  their  lives  for  a  principle. 
The  mother  cares  for  the  sick  child,  counting 
not  her  pleasure,  her  comfort,  or  even  her 


[179 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


own  life  dear  if  she  may  save  the  child. 
The  poor  dog  attached  to  his  master  goes 
to  the  spot  where  he  saw  them  lay  the 
body  and  whines  for  the  sound  of  a  voice 
that  is  still.  Has  the  Creator  of  such  moral 
integrity  in  the  heroes  and  martyrs  kept 
none  of  it  for  himself?  Has  he  out  of  the 
ages  gone  produced  such  devotion  in  the 
heart  of  the  mother  with  no  devotion  in  his 
own  heart  toward  his  helpless  child  .^^  Has 
he  instilled  such  faithful  affection  in  the  very 
dogs  that  perish,  but  failed  to  share  in  that 
love  himself.^  Serious  men  cannot  bring 
themselves  to  believe  in  anything  so  absurd. 
These  forces  which  produce  attachment  to 
the  right,  devotion  to  the  helpless,  faithful 
affection,  are  universal  forces. 

"O  heart  I  made,  a  heart  beats  here"  — 
that  was  the  word  of  God  through  the  lips 
of  the  poet!  These  forces  of  love  and  grace 
are  universal  and  enduring  as  the  stars. 
To  fight  them  spells  defeat.  To  cooperate 
with  them,  bringing  the  scattered  and  aim- 
less activities  of  the  life  into  harmony  with 
the  supreme  purpose  of  God  declared  in 
Jesus  Christ,  means  life  abundant  and 
eternal. 


180] 


XI 

THE  POWER  OF  VISION 


i 


XI 

THE   POWER   OF   VISION 


IN  an  old  school  reader  there  was  a  sketch, 
"Eyes  or  no  eyes."  Two  young  men 
went  for  a  walk  in  the  same  field. 
One  of  them  saw  just  the  commonplace 
shapes  and  forms;  he  saw  nothmg  that  a 
dog  or  a  kodak  would  not  have  seen.  He 
had  eyes  to  see,  but  he  saw  not.  The  other 
one  saw  the  bumblebees  appearing  later  in 
the  season  than  do  the  honey-bees,  and 
thought  of  the  relation  this  fact  sustains  to 
the  production  of  red  clover  seed  —  a  rela- 
tion which  every  farmer  understands  when 
he  cuts  the  second  crop  in  place  of  the  first 
to  get  seed.  He  saw  at  one  side  of  the  field 
a  great  granite  boulder  deposited  there 
in  the  glacial  period,  and  although  the  day 
was  hot  his  mind  was  cool  as  it  dwelt  upon 
that  age  of  ice.  He  saw  the  imprint  of  the 
shell  of  some  water-breathing  creature  deep 

[183  1 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


bedded  as  a  fossil  in  a  piece  of  stone.  Ilis 
imagination  went  back  to  the  time  when 
that  very  field  was  part  of  an  inland  sea, 
and  this  bit  of  life  was  making  its  impress 
upon  the  soft  mud  of  some  ancient  seashore. 
He  saw  a  score  of  interesting  things  which 
need  not  be  named  here;  they  were  all  there 
to  be  seen,  but  his  friend  had  overlooked 
them.  It  was  a  question  of  "eyes  or  no 
eyes."  What  any  man  sees  in  a  field,  or 
in  his  fellow  beings,  in  his  college  course,  or 
in  life  as  a  whole,  depends  upon  the  power 
of  vision  that  he  carries  with  him. 

Here  in  a  well-known  story  was  a  man 
keeping  sheep  on  the  slopes  of  Horeb.  In 
reading  the  narrative  it  seems  that  the  im- 
agination of  the  poet  has  blended  with  the 
plain  prose  facts  of  history.  We  do  not 
know  what  kind  of  fire  it  was  which  burned 
in  that  mysterious  and  vocal  bush.  We  may 
believe  it  was  the  same  kind  of  fire  which 
burns  in  the  grate  or  we  may  conclude  that 
it  was  an  extraordinary  bit  of  autumnal 
splendor  which  at  a  certain  season  of  the  year 
is  aflame  on  many  hillsides  as  if  the  glory  and 
color  of  a  thousand  sunsets  might  have 
lodged  in  the  tree  tops.     However  that  may 

[184  1 


THE    POWER    OF    VISION 


be,  what  Moses  actually  saw  and  heard  that 
day  is  far  more  important  than  any  conceiv- 
able amount  of  literal  fire  or  of  autumn 
color. 

"I  will  now  turn  aside  and  see"  —  and 
what  he  saw  his  own  subsequent  career 
indicates!  He  had  the  power  of  vision  and 
he  saw  not  merely  the  shapes  and  colors 
present  in  that  sheep  pasture.  He  saw 
things  absent,  things  historic,  things  possible 
as  present  and  real.  He  saw  away  yonder 
on  the  banks  of  the  Nile  where  he  formerly 
lived,  the  life  of  his  own  fellows  being  crushed 
out  of  them  by  wrong  industrial  conditions. 
He  saw  the  capacity  of  that  race,  burning 
but  unconsumed  even  by  those  years  of  op- 
pression, for  moral  idealism  and  spiritual 
leadership  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 
He  felt  within  his  own  breast  a  fitness  for 
service  wider,  higher,  and  more  significant 
than  that  of  keeping  sheep.  He  felt  him- 
self commissioned  from  on  high  for  that 
responsible  service,  and  he  became  dissat- 
isfied with  his  own  easy  content  there  in 
the  land  of  Midian.  He  saw  the  great 
divine  heart  filled  with  sympathy  for  an 
enslaved  and  oppressed  people.     He  heard 


185 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


the  divine  voice  say,  "I  have  seen  the  afflic- 
tion of  my  people  which  are  in  Egypt;  I 
have  heard  their  cry  by  reason  of  their  task- 
masters, and  I  am  come  down  to  dehver 
them."  He  saw  the  divine  hand  reach 
out  to  employ  mysterious  agencies  for  the 
release  of  that  people  from  the  bondage  of 
Egypt. 

He  had  the  power  of  vision  and  this  is 
what  he  saw  when  he  led  his  flock  to  the 
back  side  of  the  desert,  even  to  Horeb,  the 
mountain  of  God.  The  sheep  saw  nothing 
of  that  burning  bush  or  of  those  other  myste- 
rious realities.  The  dull  Midianites  watch- 
ing their  flocks  a  few  hundred  yards  away 
on  the  same  slope  saw  nothing  of  it.  A 
man  standing  in  Moses'  own  shoes,  his  face 
turned  in  the  same  direction,  would  have 
seen  nothing  unless  he  had  brought  to  the 
situation  the  insight  of  this  man  of  vision. 

And  Moses  himself  saw  and  heard  what 
he  did  in  that  high  hour  because  through 
long  years  he  had  cherished  a  profound 
sympathy  for  his  brother  men  and  a  great 
abiding  faith  in  God  as  one  who  works  on 
behalf  of  suffering  people  everywhere.  It 
was  the  whole  mood  and  purpose  of  his  life 


186] 


THE    1'  O  VV  E  U    OF    VISION 


which  stood  declared  in  those  splendid 
words,  "I  will  now  turn  aside  and  see." 
He  was  always  saying  just  that!  He  was 
never  content  with  the  mere  surface  of  real- 
ity. He  was  never  satisfied  with  that  which 
a  hasty  glance  would  bring  in  any  given 
situation.  He  must  get  beneath  the  sur- 
face and  know  the  deeper,  hidden  meaning. 
How  much  depends  upon  that  power  of 
vision !  What  mighty  issues  are  knit  up  with 
it  in  this  familiar  scene !  If  Moses  that  day 
had  seen  and  heard  nothing  more  than  did 
the  Midianites,  he  would  have  gone  on  keep- 
ing his  sheep  and  would  have  died  a  com- 
fortable and  prosperous  sheep  grower.  If 
the  Israelites  along  the  banks  of  the  Nile 
had  been  without  the  power  of  such  leader- 
ship as  he  alone  among  the  men  of  his  gen- 
eration seemed  to  be  able  to  furnish,  they 
would  have  gone  on  making  bricks  without 
straw  until  all  capacity  for  spiritual  advance 
w^ould  have  been  crushed  out  of  them.  If 
that  Hebrew  race,  first  among  Semitic 
peoples  in  its  ability  to  see  and  to  impart 
spiritual  truth,  had  never  had  its  chance  to 
develop  in  the  free  air  of  the  steppes  or  within 
the  pleasant  borders  of  that  land  of  promise, 

[  187  1 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


how  different  apparently  would  have  been 
the  moral  history  of  the  race!  It  is  idle  to 
speculate  on  what  would  have  been  the  re- 
sult had  something  never  happened  which 
did  happen,  but  just  this  glance  shows  the 
momentous  consequences  which  may  at 
any  juncture  attach  to  the  ability  of  some 
man  to  see.  It  is  of  the  utmost  importance 
in  every  quarter  that  some  man  should  be 
at  hand  who  can  see  the  great  sight. 

Your  own  life,  the  richness  of  it,  the  prom- 
ise of  it,  the  successful  unfolding  of  it  on 
higher  levels,  is  bound  up  with  this  power 
of  vision.  If  the  world  about  you  is  only 
a  sheep  pasture,  if  success  in  life  is  to  be 
measured  solely  or  mainly  in  terms  of  wool 
and  mutton,  if  the  skilful  avoidance  of 
discomfort  and  the  securing  of  easy  content 
for  yourself  and  your  family  are  the  main 
considerations  with  you,  then  by  that  lim- 
ited outlook  you  are  doomed.  If  here  in  these 
days  of  high  privilege  on  the  campus  no 
bushes  burn  for  you  with  a  strange  fire,  if  no 
hillsides  in  life  become  vocal  with  a  divine 
voice,  if  no  flames  of  sympathy,  of  moral 
passion,  of  aspiration  burn  within  your 
breast,    then    alas    for    you!     You    are    not 

[1881 


THE    POWER    OF    VISION 


\ 


entering  into  the  meaning  of  life!  You 
have  eyes,  but  you  see  not,  ears,  but  you 
hear  not! 

"Can  ye  not  discern?"  Jesus  said  to  those 
who  regarded  themselves  as  the  most  exem- 
plary people  of  his  day.  They  could  look 
up  at  the  sky  and  from  the  fact  that  it  was 
red  or  lowering  make  a  fairly  good  guess 
about  tomorrow's  weather,  but  they  could 
not  discern  the  signs  of  the  times.  There 
they  were  in  the  presence  of  the  beginnings 
of  the  most  important  spiritual  movement 
in  history,  yet  all  they  saw  was  the  tired 
face  of  the  Man  of  Nazareth,  whom  they 
finally  put  to  death  because  his  claims  con- 
fused them.  Can  ye  not  discern.'^  Will 
you  not  take  pains  to  cultivate  the  power  of 
turning  aside  to  see  the  great  sights  await- 
ing you  all  in  the  sheep  pastures  of  earth, 
in  all  scenes  of  industry  and  in  all  places  of 
trade,  in  all  lines  of  civic  effort  and  in  all 
forms  of  charitable  intent,  in  every  school- 
room and  in  every  home.^^  Will  you  not  turn 
and  with  heightened  power  of  vision  see 
there  the  hidden,  unrealized  possibilities.-^ 

"WTiere  there  is  no  vision,  the  people  per- 
ish!"    Something  lives  on  —  flesh  and  blood 


189 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


shapes  which  buy  and  sell,  walk  the  street 
and  talk  small  talk,  but  the  people  created 
potentially  in  the  likeness  and  image  of 
the  Most  High  are  gone.  Where  there  is 
no  vision,  any  life  perishes.  What  keeps 
alive  the  mother-love  in  the  face  of  all  the 
hardships,  sacrifices,  buffetings  it  is  called 
upon  to  meet.f^  It  is  the  power  of  vision 
cherished  and  cultivated  more  actively,  per- 
haps, by  women  than  by  men.  WTien  her 
child  is  first  laid  in  her  arms  it  is  only  a  bit 
of  red  flesh  —  that  is  all  the  canary  in  the 
window  or  the  thoughtless  observer  who 
cares  not  for  children  would  see.  This  bit  of 
existence,  so  undeveloped  as  to  have  nothing 
one  could  call  moral  life,  no  power  to  choose 
or  to  aspire;  so  undeveloped  as  to  have 
nothing  one  could  call  mental  life,  no  power 
of  recognition,  discrimination,  inference,  has 
only  the  power  to  cry  and  to  feed.  But 
the  mother  sees  in  that  tiny  form  another 
promise  of  a  diviner  day  when  the  unsearched 
possibilities  of  that  new  life  shall  have  been 
trained  and  nurtured  by  her  love.  And 
throughout  the  years  when  she  nurses  the 
child  in  sickness,  bears  with  him  in  his  igno- 
rance,  woos   and   wins   him   back   from   his 


190 


E    POWER    OF    VISION 


moral  waywardness,  she  is  sustained  by  her 
maternal  vision. 

No  one  can  live  strongly,  effectively,  joy- 
ously in  any  other  way.  The  dull,  dry, 
prosaic  man  who  never  sees  the  deeper  sig- 
nificance of  any  given  situation  may  be  able 
to  saw  wood  or  add  up  columns  of  figures, 
but  when  it  comes  to  relating  these  ordinary 
details  of  life  to  some  over-arching,  under- 
lying, far-reaching  purpose  which  will  bring 
out .  the  meaning  and  the  beauty  of  exist- 
ence, he  fails.  He  has  no  power  of  vision 
and  his  real  life  goes  down  in  defeat. 

It  might  be  illustrated  in  this  way  —  read 
Baedeker  on  Mont  Blanc  and  then  read 
Coleridge!  Baedeker  has  the  facts;  he  tells 
the  height  of  the  mountain,  the  exact  dis- 
tance from  Chamounix  to  the  summit  in 
kilometers;  he  describes  every  glacier  and 
crevasse.  But  Coleridge's  "Ode"  to  the 
mountain  brings  out  the  meaning  and  the 
beauty  of  it.  Baedeker  has  facts,  Coleridge 
has  vision. 

Read  Baedeker  on  Edinburgh  and  then  read. 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson's  little  book  on  the 
same  city;  read  Baedeker  on  Northern  Italy, 
including  his  description  of  the  city  without 


[191 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


streets,  and  then  read  Ruskin's  "Stones  of 
Venice."  Read  Baedeker  on  Belgium,  includ- 
ing his  description  of  the  field  and  of 
the  Battle  of  Waterloo,  and  then  read  Vic- 
tor Hugo's  chapter  on  the  same  event  in 
"Les  Miserables."  In  one  case  you  have 
the  camera  recording  the  outward,  visible, 
prose  facts;  in  the  other  you  have  insight 
and  vision  interpreting  the  meaning  of  them. 
It  is  written,  man  shall  not  live  by  Baedeker 
alone,  but  by  every  word  which  proceedeth 
out  of  the  mind  and  heart  of  that  higher 
power  of  vision  shall  man  live. 

Let  me  urge  this  habit  upon  every  young 
man !  Put  your  own  personal  life  under  the 
power,  not  of  some  lower  mood  or  some  ill- 
advised  impulse,  but  under  the  power  of  the 
best  you  have  ever  seen  or  heard  or  felt  as  in 
any  wise  possible  to  you.  It  was  a  man  in  a 
million,  measured  by  character  and  achieve- 
ment, who  said,  while  he  was  still  in  the  vigor 
and  promise  of  his  youth,  "Wherefore  I 
was  not  disobedient  unto"  —  what?  I  was 
not  disobedient  unto  the  rules  and  regula- 
tions posted  on  the  wall  of  my  schoolroom 
or  the  door  of  the  factory  where  I  earned 
my  bread  —  that  would  have  meant  little ! 


[192 


THE    POWER    OF    VISION 


No  one  can  set  up  the  way  of  life  in  type 
and  print  it  to  be  nailed  on  a  door.  I  was 
not  disobedient  to  the  usages  and  customs 
of  the  society  where  I  moved  —  that,  too, 
might  have  meant  only  a  weak,  cheap  mode 
of  life.  "I  was  not  disobedient  unto  the 
heavenly  vision!"  I  was  true  to  the  best  I 
saw  and  heard  and  felt  as  possible  to  me! 

That  habit  of  putting  the  life  deliberately 
and  persistently  under  the  power  of  some 
noble  vision  caught  in  an  hour  of  spiritual 
privilege  will  mean  advance.  You  may,  if 
you  will  allow  your  attention  to  be  diverted 
by  the  underbrush  around  you  and  never 
see  the  bush  that  burns  with  a  strange  fire, 
never  see  things  absent,  things  historic, 
things  possible  but  unattained.  The  small 
things,  the  ant-hills,  and  the  gopher  mounds, 
may,  because  they  are  near,  shut  out  your 
view  of  Shasta  and  Whitney.  It  is  one  of 
the  tragedies  of  life  that  the  insignificant, 
the  unimportant  details  have  a  way  of  crush- 
ing out  the  finer  purposes,  thus  bringing 
defeat  to  interests  which  are  vital. 

When  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  unusu- 
ally harassed  by  some  professional  politi- 
cians as  to  the  bestowal  of  patronage,  he 


193 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


said  one  day,  half  humorously  and  half  sadly, 
"It  is  not  the  carrying  on  of  the  Civil  War 
which  is  killing  me;  it  is  the  work  of  deci- 
ding who  shall  be  postmaster  at  the  Four 
Corners.  There  is  Mr.  Blank"  —  naming 
a  very  troublesome  office-seeker  —  "I  never 
think  of  going  to  sleep  at  night  without  first 
looking  under  the  bed  to  see  if  Blank  is  not 
there  waiting  to  ask  me  for  some  office." 

It  was  one  of  the  tragedies  of  those  hard 
years  in  our  history  that  the  great  president 
of  the  republic,  who  himself  had  caught  the 
vision  and  heard  the  voice  —  "I  have  seen 
the  affliction  of  my  people  which  are  in  bond- 
age; I  have  heard  their  cry  by  reason  of  their 
taskmasters,  and  I  am  come  down  to  deliver 
them"  —  it  was  one  of  the  tragedies  of  that 
period  that  his  eyes  should  be  turned  away 
from  the  bush  which  burned  with  fire  to  study 
the  underbrush  piled  up  round  him  by  narrow- 
minded  politicians.  It  is  one  of  the  trag- 
edies of  many  lives  in  less  exalted  station 
that  the  great  things  suffer  defeat  by  the 
multiplicity  and  insistence  of  the  small 
things.  Busied  here  and  there  with  a  thou- 
sand petty  interests  —  what  we  shall  eat, 
what  we  shall  drink,  what  we  shall  put  on, 

[1941 


THE    POWER    OF     VISION 


and,  what  other  women  will  say  about  it 
when  we  get  it  on  —  the  vital  things  are 
left  undone.  The  whole  wretched  habit 
of  life  comes  from  the  lack  of  the  power  of 
vision,  the  inability  to  put  these  matters  in 
right  perspective,  the  great  things  great 
and  the  small  things  small. 

Your  real  life  does  not  consist  in  what  you 
have.  Your  real  life  does  not  consist  in 
what  you  are  actually  able  to  do.  Your 
real  life  does  not  consist  even,  as  men  often 
say,  in  what  you  are.  Your  real  life  consists 
in  what  you  see  as  possible  and  desirable  for 
you,  and  in  that  capacity  you  feel  stirring 
within  you  to  gain  all  that  sometime!  Not 
your  possessions,  not  your  outward  achieve- 
ments, not  your  inner  acquirements,  but 
your  persistently  cherished  aspirations  tell 
the  story  of  your  real  life.  It  is  what  you 
hold  in  vision  and  steadily  strive  for  which 
marks  you  up  or  down. 

But  suppose  one  feels  his  lack  of  this  power 
of  vision,  how  shall  he  gain  more  of  it.^^  How 
shall  we  cultivate  our  own  meager  share 
of  this  fine  ability?  You  may  recall  that 
word  of  Paul,  "Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor 
ear  heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  into  the 


[195] 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


heart  of  man  to  conceive  the  things  that 
God  hath  prepared  for  those  that  love  him." 
This  does  not  mean  merely  that  the  things 
prepared  for  us  are  superior  to  anything 
that  eyes  have  seen  or  ears  heard  in  this 
world;  it  means  rather  that  they  are  dis- 
cerned in  another  way.  They  come  to  us 
through  the  power  of  spiritual  perception. 
"Eye  hath  not  seen,"  not  by  physical  sensa- 
tion; "ear  hath  not  heard,"  not  by  hearsay 
or  common  report;  God  reveals  them  to  us 
by  his  Spirit.  It  was  not  that  Moses  had 
better  eyes  or  better  ears  than  the  Midian- 
ite  shepherds  upon  the  hillsides;  he  had 
within  him  a  soul  of  sympathy  for  his  fel- 
lows, a  spirit  of  trust  toward  God,  an  atti- 
tude of  personal  aspiration  for  the  highest, 
which  enabled  him  to  see  and  to  hear  what 
they  failed  to  detect. 

This  power  of  vision  grows  like  other 
powers,  by  right  use.  The  soul  sees  and  sees 
more  as  the  man  obediently  translates  his 
visions  into  deeds,  his  insights  into  actions. 
If  any  man,  gifted  or  humble,  will  do  his 
will  he  shall  know,  for  "obedience,"  as  Rob- 
ertson said,  "is  the  organ  of  spiritual  knowl- 
edge."    The  power  of  vision  grows  through 


196] 


THE    POWER    OF    VISION 


right  use  as  each  added  insight  becomes  an 
effective  impulse  for  noble  action. 

It  is  this  power  of  vision  which  keeps  men 
alive  all  the  way  up  and  all  the  way  in. 
It  is  for  you  who  stand  on  the  slopes  of 
Horeb,  the  mountains  of  God,  by  reason  of 
the  higher  education  you  have  received  to 
cultivate  this  power  by  a  spirit  of  obedient 
trust  and  by  the  habit  of  loving  service.  In 
every  situation  form  the  habit  of  turning 
aside  from  the  commonplace  shapes  which 
engage  your  eyes  that  you  may  see  some  great 
and  significant  sight.  Watch  for  the  bush 
which  burns  with  a  mysterious  fire!  Listen 
for  the  voice  which  issues  out  of  it,  calling 
you  to  larger  and  higher  service!  Welcome 
these  finer  impulses  w^hich  burn  within  your 
own  breast,  for  they  will  aid  you  in  build- 
ing your  personal  life  into  that  great,  divine 
plan  of  which  you  have  caught  a  far-off 
vision. 


197 


XII 
THE   WAR  AGAINST   WAR" 


XII 

THE  WAR  AGAINST  WAR" 


IN  my  selection  of  a  theme  I  have  ven- 
tured to  break  away  from  the  conven- 
tional style  of  baccalaureate  address. 
I  bring  you  no  word  of  counsel  touching  those 
moral  values  which  are  altogether  private 
and  personal.  I  would  undertake  rather 
to  direct  your  minds  to  the  consideration 
of  a  certain  problem,  vast  and  grave,  whose 
scope  is  national  and  international. 

We  live  in  a  land  governed  by  public 
opinion.  The  seat  of  authority  is  not  at 
Washington;  the  seat  of  authority  is  to 
be  found  in  those  prevailing  sentiments  and 
convictions  which  determine  the  real  atti- 
tude of  the  people  themselves.  As  college- 
trained  men  and  women  you  are  to  be  leaders 
in  the  work  of  forming  that  body  of  public 
opinion.  W^here  it  is  wise,  honest,  resolute, 
it  becomes  the  final  source  of  safety  for  the 

[2011 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


republic.  It  is  of  vital  importance,  then, 
that  your  contribution  to  that  section  of 
public  opinion  which  bears  upon  the  prob- 
lem I  have  in  mind  be  grounded  in  reason 
and  conscience. 

Let  me  remind  you  of  two  sentences  taken 
from  Holy  Writ,  one  from  the  greatest  book 
in  the  Old  Testament,  "His  name  shall 
be  called  the  Prince  of  Peace";  the  other 
from  the  last  book  in  the  New  Testament, 
"And  he  shall  reign  forever  and  ever." 
his  name  shall  be  called  the  Prince  of  Peace 
and  he  shall  reign  forever  and  ever!  We 
have  here  a  miniature  picture  of  one  of  the 
sublime  processes  of  the  ages!  The  highest 
anticipation  of  the  Hebrew  looked  toward 
the  coming  of  One  who  should  establish  a 
new  line  of  succession.  He  saw  a  new  qual- 
ity of  life  winning  its  way  to  empire.  The 
heir  to  the  throne  of  Israel  would  be  no 
more  a  man  of  war,  he  would  be  the  Prince 
of  Peace.  And  the  highest  anticipation  of 
the  Christian  looked  toward  the  complete 
success  of  that  finer  method  of  sovereignty 
—  that  coming  One  would  reign  forever ! 

It  is  a  splendid  picture  of  that  righteous 
and  enduring  conquest  to  be  accomplished 


202 


THE    W  A  U    AGAINST    WAR" 


not  by  force  but  by  principle;  not  by  com- 
pulsion through  slaughter  but  by  moral 
instruction,  persuasion,  and  reasonable  agree- 
ment. It  is  a  picture  which  will  furnish  any 
man  a  worthy  ideal  to  hang  in  his  sky  and  it 
will  help  him,  as  he  takes  part  in  shaping 
the  public  opinion  of  his  country,  to  place 
the  crown  of  his  ultimate  allegiance  where 
it  rightly  belongs. 

His  name  shall  be  called  the  Prince  of 
Peace !  But  what  terrible  mockery  has  been 
offered  to  that  name  by  his  avowed  fol- 
lowers! It  is  one  of  the  ironies  of  history 
that  the  most  costly  and  deadly  armaments 
for  the  killing  of  men  in  war  are  being  wrought 
out  in  cold  steel,  not  by  the  nations  which 
owe  their  allegiance  to  Mahomet,  the  prophet 
of  the  sword,  but  by  those  nations  which 
profess  allegiance  to  the  Prince  of  Peace. 
"Put  up  thy  sword,"  he  said  twenty  cen- 
turies ago!  The  command  has  never  been 
withdrawn  nor  revoked.  Yet  look  out  across 
the  face  of  what  we  call  Christendom  and 
see  the  wricked  and  costly  refusal! 

Christian  Germany,  where  the  Protestant 
Reformation  was  ushered  in  by  the  preaching 
of  Martin  Luther,  has  increased  her  national 


203 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


debt  in  a  single  generation  from  eighteen 
millions  of  dollars  to  over  one  thousand 
millions,  chiefly  by  expenditures  upon  her 
army  and  navy.  Christian  England,  known 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth  as  a  center  of  mis- 
sionary impulse,  is  almost  beside  herself 
in  her  mad  desire  to  increase  the  number 
of  Dreadnoughts.  She  is  spending  three 
hundred  millions  of  dollars  a  year  on  her 
army  and  navy  as  against  eighty-two  mil- 
lions all  told  on  education,  science  and  art. 
Christian  Russia,  professing  in  her  ortho- 
dox Greek  Church  to  have  the  only  true  faith 
to  be  found  upon  the  globe,  is  planning  a 
billion  dollar  navy  and  is  actually  spending 
two  hundred  millions  a  year  upon  armament 
as  against  twenty-two  millions  a  j^ear  upon 
education.  And  our  own  Christian  coun- 
try has  been  making  a  strange  departure 
from  that  policy  which  has  made  us  prosper- 
ous and  happy,  honored  and  useful,  among 
the  nations  of  the  earth  for  more  than  one 
hundred  years.  The  United  States  in  the 
last  ten  years  has  increased  in  population 
ten  per  cent,  and  it  has  increased  its  mili- 
tary expenditures  during  that  period  by 
three  hundred  per  cent.     And  this  is  Chris- 


[204 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR" 


I 


tendom!  These  are  the  nations  which  look 
up  to  the  One  whose  name  is  called  "The 
Prince  of  Peace"  and  crown  him  Lord  of 
all!  Alas,  for  the  bitter  irony  of  such  a 
course ! 

And  all  this  at  a  time  when  the  bare  prob- 
lem of  bread  is  becoming  more  and  more 
serious!  England,  spending  her  three  hun- 
dred millions  of  dollars  a  year  on  military 
outlay,  has  little  children  in  the  street,  of 
London  and  Glasgow  eating  refuse  out  of 
the  garbage  barrels  because  they  are  hungry. 
The  problem  of  poverty  and  unemployment 
there  is  so  grave  that  the  British  Parliament 
sets  aside  whole  days  for  its  consideration. 
In  Germany  a  government  expert  said  re- 
cently that,  according  to  carefully  prepared 
estimates  based  upon  detailed  investigation, 
there  were  two  men  applying  for  almost 
every  job  which  promised  a  living  wage; 
one-half  of  the  skilled  labor  of  the  empire 
was  out  of  employment.  In  Russia,  people 
by  the  thousand  die,  like  flies,  from  malnu- 
trition at  the  very  hour  when  her  military 
experts  are  talking  about  that  billion  dollar 
navy.  It  is  criminal  to  take  thus  the  chil- 
dren's bread  and  fling  it  to  the  dogs  of  war! 

[2051 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


How  terrible  all  this  is  for  nations  which 
profess  to  honor  and  follow  the  One  who 
came  not  to  destroy  men's  lives,  but  to  save 
them! 

In  our  own  country,  while  the  situation  is 
less  serious,  there  are  men  enough  out  of 
work  and  unable  to  find  bread  to  put  into 
the  mouths  of  their  families.  Never  a  week 
passes  when  men  do  not  come  asking  me  to 
use  my  influence  with  the  employers  in  my 
congregation  to  find  them  work.  Our  na- 
tional leaders  are  looking  in  every  direction 
to  discover  how  the  revenue  may  be  increased. 
The  present  revenue  is  sadly  inadequate  for 
the  things  which  ought  to  be  done.  There  are 
millions  of  acres  of  arid  land  to  be  irrigated 
by  national  enterprise  and  offered  for  settle- 
ment to  industrious  families.  There  are  great 
areas  of  swamp  land  to  be  drained  which 
would  support  a  busy,  happy  population. 
There  are  forests  to  be  conserved  and  renewed 
in  a  way  that  would  change  the  whole  face 
of  the  situation  for  the  farmer  and  the 
fruit-grower  in  great  sections  of  our  country. 
There  are  inland  waterways  to  be  improved 
and  developed,  bringing  producer  and  con- 
sumer nearer  together  by  better  means  of 

[206] 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    U  A  U ' 


transportation,  thus  reducing  the  cost  of 
Hving.  There  is  a  merchant  marine  sadly 
needing  assistance,  for  our  iQag  should  iBy 
on  all  seas  and  in  every  port,  in  what  could 
be  a  useful  and  profitable  trade.  All  these 
things  ought  to  be  done,  if  only  there  was 
money  available  to  do  them.  All  these 
interests  suffer  for  lack  of  money  in  the  very 
period  when  within  ten  years  we  are  increas- 
ing our  military  expenditure  by  three  hun- 
dred per  cent.  His  name  shall  be  called 
"The  Prince  of  Peace,"  and  it  is  under  his 
banner  that  we  profess  to  march! 

What  is  it  all  for.^  I  know  the  scare-heads 
w^hich  sometimes  fill  the  sillier  type  of  news- 
paper. I  know  how  frightened  some  people 
are  w^hen  some  "military  expert,"  as  he  calls 
himself,  has  the  nightmare.  "Men  who 
spend  the  best  years  of  their  lives  looking 
at  the  world  through  the  bore  of  a  gun  get 
their  vision  distorted."  They  cannot  see 
straight;  they  become  sorry  and  unreliable 
leaders,  as  Europe,  staggering  under  her 
grievous  burden,  know^s  to  her  sorrow.  Sir 
Edward  Grey,  foreign  secretary  in  the 
present  Cabinet,  said  recently  in  the  British 
Parliament,  "The  vastness  of  the  expendi- 


[207 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


ture  on  armament  is  a  satire  on  modern 
civilization  and  if  continued  it  must  lead 
Europe  into  bankruptcy."  The  real  secu- 
rity of  any  nation  depends  upon  its  schools 
and  its  churches,  its  useful  industries  and  its 
happy  homes  a  thousand  times  more  than 
upon  its  army  and  navy.  And  the  conceit 
of  these  militarists  who  are  throwing  dust 
in  the  eyes  of  the  people  would  be  funny,  if 
it  were  not  so  costly  and  so  perilous  to  our 
national  well-being. 

It  is  the  duty  of  the  church  and  of  the  uni- 
versity, where  men  do  not  live  in  that  state 
of  chronic  hysteria  which  possesses  many  a 
newspaper  oflSce,  to  arraign  this  evil  of 
militarism  as  the  most  cruel  and  inexcusable 
burden,  as  the  most  gigantic  crime  against 
the  toiling  people,  as  the  nearest  approach 
to  the  unpardonable  sin  known  to  our 
twentieth  century.  The  men  who  watch  the 
world  from  that  narrow  station  "behind  the 
gun"  are  not  competent  leaders  of  public 
sentiment.  The  merchant  and  the  mechanic, 
the  wise  lawyer  and  the  skilled  physician, 
the  farmer,  the  miner,  and  the  trained 
teacher,  engaged  in  peaceful,  useful  industry, 
are  vastly  more  competent  to  see  things  as 


208 


E    WAR    A  G  A  I  N  S  T    W  A  It 


they  are  and  to  aid  in  shaping  a  wholesome 
pubHc  sentiment.  International  relation- 
ships are  being  formed  today  as  never  before 
in  the  history  of  the  race  through  community 
of  interest  in  trade  and  by  those  associations 
which  come  through  labor  organizations 
and  through  literature,  through  the  work 
of  education  and  by  religious  affiliation. 
It  is  for  these  men  and  women  whose  main 
interest  lies  in  those  productive  vocations 
to  insist  upon  being  heard. 

What  are  the  reasons  urged  for  this  cruel 
and  costly  outlay?  "In  time  of  peace  pre- 
pare for  war!"  This  stupid  sentiment  is 
trotted  out  as  if  it  were  a  fragment  from  the 
wisdom  of  the  ages.  History  as  well  as 
common  sense  laughs  it  to  scorn.  In  time 
of  peace  prepare  for  peace!  We  did  just 
that  with  England  along  our  northern  bor- 
der where  for  four  thousand  miles  only  an 
imaginary  line  divides  us  from  one  of  the 
mightiest  nations  on  earth.  We  agreed 
with  her  that  not  a  solitary  fort  should  mar 
that  border,  that  not  a  single  w^ar-ship  should 
trouble  the  friendly  waters  of  the  Great 
Lakes.  If  these  two  nations  can  make  that 
treaty  of  disarmament  for  a  frontier  of  four 


209 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


thousand  miles  and  observe  it  faithfully 
for  a  century,  what  is  there  in  the  nature  of 
the  case  to  prevent  the  extension  of  that 
noble  line  of  friendly  agreement  indefinitely? 

We  prepared  for  peace  and  we  have  had 
peace.  The  whole  history  of  our  country 
has  been,  in  the  main,  a  history  of  peace. 
Since  1789,  a  hundred  and  twenty-one  years 
ago,  only  three  foreign  wars  have  interrupted 
our  progress,  and  they  lasted,  all  told,  less 
than  eight  years.  For  the  other  one  hundred 
and  thirteen  years  our  swords  have  been 
plowshares,  our  spears  have  been  pruning- 
hooks,  the  fine  steel  of  our  young  manhood 
has  been  devoted  to  those  useful  activities 
which  do  not  destroy,  but  feed  and  save. 
If  we  can  thus  live  and  grow  to  be  one 
of  the  mightiest  nations  on  earth  by  the 
policy  of  peace,  why  this  sudden  spasm 
of  military  preparation  now  retarding  our 
genuine  development! 

But  we  have  become  "a  world  power"  men 
say,  and  some  of  the  nations  might  attack 
us!  Why  should  they?  Never  since  we 
became  a  republic  have  we  been  attacked, 
though  for  decades  and  decades  our  navy 
was   a   negligible   quantity.     *'But   suppose 


210] 


T  U  E    WAR    AGAINST    WAR" 


Germany  should  land  a  hundred  thousand 
soldiers  on  our  Atlantic  coast,"  some  man 
shrieked  out  recently.  Why  should  she? 
Sane  people  deal  with  probabilities,  not  with 
wild  and  imaginary  possibilities.  If  Ger- 
many w^anted  to  attack  us,  why  did  she  not 
do  it  in  those  years  when  we  had  no  navy  at 
all  worth  mentioning.^  We  buy  millions 
and  millions  of  dollars  worth  of  goods  every 
year  "made  in  Germany."  Does  Germany 
wish  to  fight  one  of  her  best  customers.^  If 
some  man  who  keeps  a  meat-market  has  a 
customer  who  comes  in  every  day  to  order 
chops  or  a  steak  for  his  lunch  and  a  roast  of 
beef  or  a  leg  of  lamb  for  his  dinner,  does  the 
butcher  want  to  beat  that  customer  over 
the  head  with  a  musket  .^^  Any  one  can  see 
the  absurdity  of  it!  Is  folly  any  the  less 
folly  when  raised  to  the  nth  power  by  being 
made  international.^ 

So  much  for  Germany!  As  for  England, 
she  ruled  the  sea  for  all  those  decades  when 
we  had  no  navy  worth  considering  and  she 
never  thought  of  attacking  us.  W^hy  should 
she  fight  the  people  of  her  own  race  and  lan- 
guage whose  commercial  interests  are  so 
closely  interwoven  with  her  own  economic 


[211] 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


life?  France  is  our  traditional  and  heredi- 
tary friend.  No  other  nation  on  that  side 
of  the  globe  need  be  taken  into  our  calcu- 
lation. What  a  nightmare  it  is  which  sets 
us  to  building  ten  million  dollar  warships 
for  fear  some  respectable  neighbor  might 
attack  us! 

But  there  is  Japan!  At  the  very  hour 
when  ten  thousand  Japanese  boys  and  girls 
were  singing  songs  of  welcome  along  the 
streets  to  the  oflficers  and  men  of  the  Amer- 
ican jBeet,  when  the  whole  empire  from 
the  officials  of  high  rank  down  to  the 
jinrikisha  men  in  the  street  was  show- 
ing its  cordial  good-will  to  the  represen- 
tatives of  our  country,  an  excitable  young 
man,  who  owes  his  fame  to  the  fact  that  he 
did  one  brave  deed  at  Santiago  and  was 
thenceforth  miscellaneously  kissed  by  a  lot 
of  impressionable  women  —  this  excitable 
young  man  was  rushing  about  saying,  "War 
with  Japan  is  inevitable!"  And  here  on  the 
Pacific  coast  recently  a  tired,  sick,  disap- 
pointed old  man,  an  admiral  in  the  navy, 
said  to  a  bunch  of  newspaper  reporters  who 
wanted  something  yellow  to  fill  up  the  front 
page,  "Japan  could  tear  this  coast  to  ribbons 

[  212  1 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR' 


in  sixty  days!"  He  made  this  thoughtless 
deliverance  at  the  very  time  when  the  ink 
on  the  notable  agreement  entered  into  by 
President  Roosevelt  and  the  emperor  of 
Japan  was  scarcely  dry!  The  thoughtful 
people  of  both  nations  smiled  and  then 
mourned  over  his  foolish  word.  Germany, 
England,  France,  Japan,  these  four  are  the 
only  nations  on  the  globe  that  we  need  take 
into  such  a  consideration!  How  absurd  to 
be  imposing  upon  the  toiling  people  the  use- 
less burden  of  expensive  armament  against 
these  neighbors. 

But  "we  have  colonies  now  and  we  must 
defend  them  —  there  are  the  Philippines!" 
Who  wants  the  Philippines?  Nobody!  They 
have  been,  as  all  the  world  knows,  an  expen- 
sive and  troublesome  burden.  We  have 
already  spent  several  hundreds  of  millions 
of  dollars  upon  that  undertaking,  and  the 
end  is  not  yet.  We  could  well  afford  to  pay 
any  country  fifty  millions  of  dollars  to  take 
them  off  our  hands.  But  this  is  not  the  way 
national  business  is  transacted.  We  found 
ourselves  with  the  Philippines  in  our  pos- 
session, contrary  to  the  wish  and  judgment 
of  many  of  us  at  the  time,  and  now  by  an 


[213 


THE    GAP    A  ^  D    GOWN 


expenditure  of  these  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars  upon  schools  and  churches,  upon 
better  government,  public  improvements, 
and  economic  development,  we  have  been 
trying  to  do  our  duty  by  that  backward 
people.  But  nobody  wants  to  fight  us  to 
get  the  Philippines.  "They  can  be  left  out 
over  night,"  as  Dr.  Jefferson  said  in  New 
York,  "without  the  slightest  anxiety  on  our 
part."  We  certainly  do  not  need  to  increase 
our  military  expenditures  three  hundred 
per  cent  to  prevent  some  nation  from  rob- 
bing us  of  that  precious  colony. 

There  are  enemies  against  which  we  do 
need  to  arm  ourselves!  Not  England  and 
Germany,  not  France  and  Japan  —  no,  the 
common  enemies  of  hunger  and  cold,  pain 
and  disease,  ignorance  and  vice,  greed  and 
graft,  unemployment  and  inequitable  dis- 
tribution! Against  these  enemies  we  do 
need  to  arm.  These  alien  elements  are  the 
dangerous  foes  of  the  republic,  and  they  have 
landed  their  devastating  forces  upon  our 
shores.  Against  them  we  must  enlist ;  against 
them  we  must  build  the  best  armaments 
which  statesmanship  can  devise  and  gen- 
erous treasuries  provide.     And  in  that  great 


214 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    W  A  R  " 


and  honorable  warfare  against  the  real 
enemies  of  human  well-being  the  exalted 
Leader  of  our  race,  the  One  whose  name 
written  above  every  name  is  called  the  Prince 
of  Peace,  will  march  at  the  head  of  the 
advancing  host. 

Not  only  the  costliness,  but  the  futility 
of  this  burdensome  armament  smites  us  in 
the  face  when  we  begin  to  think.  Some  years 
ago  in  Russia,  a  man  named  Jean  Bloch 
began  to  write  about  war.  He  was  not  a 
dreamy  sentimentalist;  he  was  a  banker 
and  the  administrator  of  a  great  railroad 
system.  He  had  been  studying  war  upon 
its  scientific  and  economic  side.  He  ad- 
vanced the  argument  that  the  introduction 
of  long-range,  rapid-fire  guns  using  smoke- 
less powder  made  decisive  engagements 
between  large  bodies  of  troops  impossible; 
and  thus  made  useless  the  appeal  to  arms  as 
a  mode  of  settling  international  disputes. 

A  small  force  of  men  securely  entrenched 
can  now  hold  at  bay  indefinitely  a  mighty 
army.  Wlien  men  could  safely  march  up 
within  two  or  three  hundred  yards  of  earth- 
works, fortified  positions  were  sometimes 
carried  by  the  assault  of  a  superior  force. 


215 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


All  this  is  now  changed.  The  zone  of  fire 
to-day  extends  for  more  than  a  mile.  Across 
that  space  the  man  behind  the  earthworks 
can  shoot  with  marvelous  accuracy  fifteen 
to  twenty -five  bullets  per  minute.  Smoke- 
less powder  keeps  the  zone  of  deadly  fire 
clear,  so  that  he  can  see  how  to  shoot.  The 
field  is  not  obscured  by  smoke  as  it  was  when 
Longstreet  made  his  advance  at  Gettysburg. 
Smokeless  powder  and  the  recently  invented 
noiseless  rifle  make  it  impossible  to  locate 
the  foe  either  by  sight  or  by  sound  —  men 
simply  drop  dead  as  they  undertake  to 
advance  across  that  zone  of  fire  which  ex- 
tends for  a  mile.  The  effect  of  all  this  upon 
the  morale  of  an  army  undertaking  to  carry 
a  fortified  position  by  assault  is  instantly 
apparent.  Such  attempts  are  now  things 
of  the  past. 

Jean  Bloch  had  scarcely  published  his 
argument  when  the  South  African  war  came 
on  to  demonstrate  the  essential  soundness 
of  his  main  conclusions.  The  British  empire 
was  making  war  upon  two  little  republics 
numbering  all  told,  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, about  eighty  thousand  people  —  less 
than  enough  to  provide  inhabitants  for  some 


216 


T  U  E    WAR     AGAINST      W  A  U 


third-rate  city.  Imagine  some  unimpor- 
tant city  of  eighty  thousand  people  under- 
taking to  wage  war  with  England!  Yet 
with  all  the  resources  of  her  army  and  navy, 
with  the  treasury  drawn  upon  at  the  rate 
of  a  million  dollars  a  day,  with  Lord  Roberts 
in  the  field,  and  with  the  splendid  courage 
of  her  best  troops  matched  against  the  scanty 
numbers  of  the  opposing  forces,  the  Boers 
held  out  against  Great  Britain  for  nearly 
three  years. 

It  was  a  bitter  experience  for  England. 
It  burdened  her  with  an  mcrease  of  debt 
under  which  she  staggers  in  her  present 
industrial  depression.  It  hastened  the  death 
of  the  good  Queen  Victoria.  It  brings  an 
apologetic  note  into  the  voice  of  almost 
every  Englishman  one  meets  today  when 
he  refers  to  it,  and  yet  it  was  the  British 
empire  against  eighty  thousand  people.  Im- 
agine what  it  would  have  been  in  costliness 
and  in  futility  had  she  been  trying  to  over- 
come an  equal!  Picture  the  folly  of  Eng- 
land trying  to  overcome  Germany,  or  of 
France  trying  to  conquer  the  united  States. 
Jean  Bloch  was  right,  and  many  of  Europe's 
wisest   statesmen   are  openly   endorsing  his 

[217  1 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


claim.  They  are  using  the  sensible  argu- 
ment of  this  business  man  to  stem  this  tide 
of  militarism  now  sweeping  across  the  face 
of  Christendom. 

Artillery  has  become  all  but  useless  against 
modern  fortifications.  Plevna  told  us  that, 
thirty  years  ago.  The  Russian  general, 
Todleben,  said  of  that  campaign,  "We 
would  bombard  Plevna  for  a  whole  day  and 
kill  perhaps  a  single  Turk."  The  South 
African  war  repeated  the  same  sentiment 
with  a  loud  "amen."  The  correspondents 
on  the  English  side  reported,  "We  bombarded 
Cronje  for  a  solid  week  and  after  the  struggle 
was  over  we  found  he  had  lost  in  all  that 
time  less  than  a  hundred  men." 

The  costly  operations  of  modern  war- 
fare, when  a  fleet  can  fire  away  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars'  worth  of  ammunition  in  a  few 
minutes  and  when  armies  in  the  field  run  up 
bills  correspondingly  great,  impose  burdens 
which  lift  the  luxury  of  such  performances 
out  of  the  reach  of  all  but  the  well-to-do 
nations.  When  the  old-time  fighters  used 
battle-axes  and  broadswords,  they  could  go 
out  and  hew  Agag  in  pieces  before  the  Lord 
as  long  as  the  strength  of  their  right  arms 

[2181 


T  HE    W  A  K    AGAINST    W  A  R ' 


and  the  supply  of  Agags  held  out  —  they 
could  do  this  indefinitely  without  entailing 
any  serious  expense  upon  their  countries. 
But  the  costly  weapons  now  in  vogue,  with 
their  voracious  appetites  for  expensive 
ammunition,  make  war  another  matter. 

Even  these  terrible  outlays  might  be  borne 
by  the  powerful  nations  for  a  brief  period, 
but  the  inability  of  any  large  army  to  win  a 
speedy  and  decisive  victory  over  another 
would  cause  the  campaigns  to  drag  along 
until  the  economic  resources  of  both  parties 
to  the  struggle  would  be  taxed  beyond  limit 
and  thus  the  futility  of  the  appeal  to  arms 
would  again  be  demonstrated.  All  this  has 
become  so  apparent  that  some  of  the  wisest 
statesmen  in  Europe  are  insisting  that  war 
between  great  nations  of  approximately 
equal  strength  has  become,  on  the  face  of  it, 
such  an  absurdity  as  to  make  such  an  event 
in  the  highest  degree  improbable. 

In  the  city  of  Lucerne,  on  the  shore  of 
that  lovely  lake  with  the  Rigi  and  Pilatus 
rising  up  in  front,  Jean  Bloch  caused  to  be 
erected  a  "Museum  of  Peace  and  War." 
He  knew  that  abstract  arguments  are  some- 
times   weak    where    visible,    tangible    facts 

[2191 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


are  strong  in  their  power  of  appeal.  He 
provided  for  exhibits  of  the  various  forms  of 
armament  from  arrow-heads  and  primitive 
tomahawks  down  to  Mauser  rifles  and  Krupp 
cannon.  He  has  shown  how  complete 
defenses  may  be  made  where  barbed  wire  ob- 
stacles are  stretched  across  that  deadly  zone 
which  extends  for  more  than  a  mile  in  front 
of  the  fortified  spot  —  obstacles  which  men 
can  neither  cut  nor  pass  under  fire.  He  has 
shown  the  penetrative  power  of  modern 
bullets.  Napoleon  used  to  say  bluntly,  "A 
boy  will  serve  to  stop  a  bullet  as  well  as  a 
man."  But  neither  boy  nor  man  stops  the 
bullet  from  one  of  these  modern  rifles,  it 
goes  right  on  in  its  bloody  career.  Experts 
had  calculated  that  a  rifle  bullet  from  a 
Mauser  gun  would  pierce  fifteen  thicknesses 
of  cowhide,  a  hardwood  plank  three  inches 
thick,  and  then  go  through  a  dozen  more 
inch  boards  placed  at  intervals.  I  saw  there 
in  that  museum  the  results  of  the  test  —  the 
bullet  pierced  the  cowhide,  the  three-inch 
plank,  and  went  through  sixteen  inch  boards, 
lodging  in  the  seventeenth.  Army  men 
say  that  a  bullet  with  force  enough  to  pierce 
an  inch  board  will  kill  a  man.     With  such 


[220 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR 


penetrative  force  any  one  can  see  the  deadly 
efiFect  of  these  long-range,  rapid-fire  guns 
using  smokeless  powder.  It  takes  away  some 
of  the  glamour  and  romance  from  the  ter- 
rible business  of  war  to  have  its  appliances 
thus  scientifically  exhibited. 

In  that  same  museum  at  Lucerne,  where 
the  exhibits  of  deadly  weapons  are  educating 
thousands  of  tourists  from  all  the  nations  of 
earth  as  they  come  and  go,  year  by  year, 
other  exhibits  show  the  increase  of  inter- 
national arbitration  as  a  means  of  determin- 
ing differences.  Within  the  last  ten  years 
eighty  of  these  arbitration  treaties  have  been 
signed,  our  own  countrj^  being  a  party  to 
more  than  a  third  of  them  all.  There  is  a 
growing  and  an  insistent  demand  in  all  the 
enlightened  nations  of  the  earth  for  an  inter- 
national judiciary.  Men  have  come  to  see 
that  this  costly  international  dueling  does 
not  really  settle  anything.  A  few  men  have 
to  sit  down  finally  around  a  table  some- 
where and  determine  what  shall  stand.  And 
as  statesmen  get  their  eyes  open  they  will 
more  and  more  insist  that  this  shall  be  done 
before  the  costly  and  futile  experiments  in 
killing  men  take  place  rather  than  afterward. 


[221] 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


The  great  arbitrations  of  history  might 
certainly  be  made  as  conspicuous  in  our 
schools,  in  the  press,  and  in  literature  as  the 
great  battles.  Beside  that  volume  bound  in 
red,  "Fifteen  Decisive  Battles  of  the  World," 
there  ought  to  stand  another  more  significant 
volume  bound  in  white  and  gold,  "Fifty 
Decisive  Arbitrations  of  the  World."  Let 
the  church  and  the  university  join  hands  in 
helping  the  people  of  our  country  to  realize 
that  when  the  final  estimates  are  made  up, 
it  will  not  be  "Blessed  are  the  warmakers," 
but  "Blessed  are  the  peacemakers:  for  they 
shall  be  called  the  children  of  God."  How 
mighty  would  be  the  influence  of  the  thirty 
millions  of  professing  Christians  in  our  own 
land  in  shaping  public  opinion,  in  determin- 
ing our  national  policy,  could  their  hearts 
be  really  fired  with  the  magnificent  prin- 
ciples and  the  passion  for  human  well-being 
which  possessed  the  heart  of  the  Prince  of 
Peace! 

There  is  a  growing  unwillingness  among 
the  nations  to  discount  their  futures  by 
killing  off  large  numbers  of  their  bravest 
and  most  patriotic  young  men  in  war. 
David  Starr  Jordan's  two  familiar  principles 


[^^2] 


THE    W  A  U  A  G  A  I  N  S  T    W  A  K  ' 


are  absolutely  sound:  "The  blood  of  a  na- 
tion determines  its  history,"  and  "The  his- 
tory of  a  nation  determines  its  blood."  The 
truth  of  the  first  statement  we  see  at  a  glance, 
for  the  blood,  the  inner  life-quality,  of  any 
nation  shapes  its  history.  And  the  second 
statement  is  equally  true;  if  the  history  of 
a  nation  is  stained  by  incessant  warfare,  if 
generation  after  generation  consents  to  the 
destruction  of  those  courageous,  virile  young 
men  whose  hearts  respond  readily  to  the 
call  for  heroic  sacrifice,  such  a  history  elim- 
inates from  the  blood  of  that  nation  those 
very  elements  which  it  sorely  needs. 

It  cost  us  the  lives  of  half  a  million  men  to 
abolish  slavery  and  to  keep  our  country 
whole.  If  that  result  was  to  be  secured  in 
no  other  way,  men  who  love  liberty  and  love 
the  Union  may  say  that  the  price  was  not 
too  great  for  such  unspeakable  benefits. 
But  we  know  that  the  nation  today  is  less 
able  to  grapple  with  its  present  problems, 
with  the  greed  and  the  graft,  with  the  fraud 
and  the  lust  which  confront  us,  because  of 
the  loss  of  those  brave  men  and  of  the  chil- 
dren they  might  have  reared,  bequeathing  to 
them  their  own  heroic  spirit,  had  their  lives 


223 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


been  lived  out  in  peaceful  industry.  They 
went  down  cheerily  to  die  at  Shiloh  and  Chan- 
cellorsville,  at  Antietam  and  Gettysburg, 
but  the  nation  to  this  hour  feels  the  loss  of 
such  a  priceless  heritage  of  public  spirit 
and  uncalculating  heroism.  The  serious- 
minded  nations  are  becoming  ever  more 
reluctant  to  make  such  costly  sacrifices  for 
the  sake  of  the  doubtful  advantage  of  a  great 
war. 

In  the  growth  of  international  agreements, 
in  the  gradual  advance  of  what  might  be 
called  international  litigation  before  courts 
of  arbitration  replacing  the  barbarous 
methods  of  slaughter  and  conquest,  in  the 
steady  increase  of  that  good  understanding 
and  mutual  good-will  promoted  by  travel 
and  the  interchange  of  products,  by  fellow- 
ship in  the  work  of  science  and  education 
and  through  the  joys  of  sharing  responsibil- 
ity in  the  cause  of  philanthropy  and  relig- 
ion —  in  these  vast  movements  of  thought 
and  feeling  lies  the  hope  of  that  better  day 
when  peace  shall  hold  an  undisputed  sway. 
The  nineteenth  century,  by  steam  and  tele- 
graph, by  increased  travel  and  the  ready 
exchange  of  commodities,  made  the  whole 


[224 


THE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR " 


world  a  neighborhood.  It  is  for  the  twen- 
tieth century,  by  the  permeation  of  inter- 
national intercourse  with  finer  principles 
and  a  nobler  spirit,  to  make  the  whole 
world  a  brotherhood. 

It  is  the  duty  of  right-minded,  honest- 
hearted  people  everywhere  to  use  their 
utmost  endeavors  to  maintain  and  increase 
that  body  of  good  feeling  out  of  which  shall 
issue  this  higher  type  of  international  life. 
To  such  proportions  has  this  sentiment 
already  grown,  that  if  these  four  nations, 
England  Germany,  France,  and  the  United 
States,  were  to  make  arbitration  before  a 
properly  constituted  international  court  the 
method  of  their  dealing  with  one  another, 
the  other  Latin,  Slavic,  and  Oriental  coun- 
tries would  find  themselves  powerless  against 
this  mighty  tide  setting  ever  in  the  direction 
of  the  determination  of  all  differences  by 
the  more  rational  method. 

The  outlook  for  arbitration  as  a  means  of 
settlement  is  altogether  hopeful.  The  con- 
vention creating  a  joint  high  commission 
to  determine  finally  our  Canadian  boundary; 
the  self-restraint  shown  by  the  nations  at 
large   in   not   using   force   against   the   late 


225 


THE    GAP    AND    GOWN 


Castro  government  in  Venezuela;  the  three 
great  conventions  among  European  powers 
neutrahzing  Norway  and  agreeing  to  respect 
each  other's  territory  on  the  Baltic;  the 
exchange  of  notes  between  Japan  and  the 
United  States  relating  to  the  Far  East;  the 
fact  that  the  Central  American  states  have 
thus  far  kept  their  agreement  of  1907  to 
refer  all  differences  to  a  court  of  their  own 
creation;  the  fact  that  the  Balkan  crisis  in 
1908,  at  one  time  fraught  with  possibilities 
frightful  to  contemplate,  occasioned  no  Euro- 
pean war  as  would  have  been  the  result  of 
such  a  tangle  twenty  years  ago  —  all  these 
signs  of  the  times  are  full  of  promise. 

We  must  confess  that  the  churches  of  him 
whose  name  should  be  called  the  Prince  of 
Peace  have  oftentimes  been  inefficient  in 
their  performance  of  an  essential  duty. 
The  feeling  between  England  and  Germany, 
for  example,  at  the  present  time  is  almost 
insanely  acute.  Germany  has  been  jealous 
of  the  growing  friendship  between  England 
and  France,  now  happily  replacing  the  ugly 
antagonism  which  harks  back  to  the  time  of 
Napoleon.  England  is  jealous  of  Germany's 
growing  supremacy  in  the  world  of  manu- 


226 


THE    WAK    AGAINST    WAR" 


facture.  Technical  schools,  improved  ma- 
chinery, and  the  rapid  increase  of  skilled 
labor  has  enabled  the  German  to  carry  his 
wares  into  the  markets  of  the  world  and  to 
undersell  the  Briton.  All  this  with  certain 
other  causes  which  make  for  ill  feeling  has 
aroused  a  measure  of  hostility  on  both  sides 
of  the  North  Sea. 

I  spent  four  months  in  England  a  year 
ago.  I  attended  church  twice  or  three  times 
each  Sunday  and  never  once  in  all  that 
time  from  a  Christian  pulpit  did  I  hear  a 
minister  of  Christ  speak  in  deprecation  of 
that  feeling  of  hostility  or  seek  to  allay  that 
sentiment  of  international  jealousy.  Aside 
from  the  "International  Peace  Congress," 
which  met  in  England  that  summer,  the  only 
public  effort  of  that  kind  I  witnessed  or  heard 
of  was  made  at  a  socialist  meeting  in  St. 
James  Hall,  London.  The  International 
Socialist  Party  brought  over  from  Berlin 
two  well-known  men,  Kautsky,  the  editor 
of  a  socialist  organ  there,  and  Ledebour,  the 
leader  of  the  socialist  party  in  the  Reichstag, 
to  address  this  meeting  side  by  side  with 
Hyndman,  a  long-time  leader  of  the  Eng- 
lish socialists,  and  Keir  Hardie,  labor  member 


227 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


of  the  British  Parliament.  These  men, 
German  and  Briton,  stood  together  and 
uttered  their  ringing  words  that  night  against 
the  further  increase  of  armament,  and  in 
the  interests  of  brotherhood.  Has  it  come 
to  this,  that  titled  bishop  and  archbishop 
of  the  Church  of  Christ,  that  learned  scholars 
and  teachers  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge  shall 
hold  their  peace  in  the  presence  of  threat- 
ened war,  while  out  of  the  workshops  of  the 
poor  and  the  weary  ranks  of  organized  labor 
shall  come  the  prophets  of  better  things, 
calling  upon  Christendom  in  the  name  of 
the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth  to  put  up  its 
sword ! 

Our  own  nation  has  been  guilty  of  its  full 
share  of  this  gigantic  folly.  Our  Congress 
faced  a  deficit  last  year  of  something  like 
one  hundred  and  thirty  five  millions  of 
dollars,  mainly  because  of  the  enormous 
outlays  upon  the  navy  in  building  those  ten 
million  dollar  warships.  If  the  present  rate 
of  expenditure  is  maintained  for  the  next 
ten  years,  with  no  increase  whatever,  it 
means  that  we  shall  spend  upon  our  navy 
the  vast  sum  of  one  billion,  three  hundred 
and  fifty  millions  of  dollars.     The   reports 


[228 


THE    WAR     \  G  A  I N  S  T   W  A  R " 


show  that  for  the  fiscal  year  ending  June  30, 
1909,  seventy-one  per  cent  of  our  national 
revenue  was  spent  upon  the  result  of  war  and 
the  preparation  for  war,  upon  pensions  and 
upon  the  army  and  navy.  What  would  you 
think  of  the  housekeeping  of  a  family  where 
seventy-one  per  cent  of  their  income  was 
spent  on  guns!  And  because  the  govern- 
ment, with  these  huge  outlays  upon  arma- 
ment, cannot  live  upon  its  income.  Congress 
insists  upon  increased  taxation  through  these 
ingeniously  devised  tariffs,  which  fall  most 
heavily  upon  the  great  consuming  public. 
The  cost  of  living  has  increased  until  it  has 
become  cruel  to  all  people  in  modest  cir- 
cumstances and  actually  destructive  to  the 
struggling  poor. 

Has  not  the  time  come  for  the  plain  people 
to  call  a  halt!  Has  not  the  time  come  for 
the  indignant  toilers  in  peaceful  occupations 
to  restrain  the  unwise  leaders  who  are 
responsible  for  this  craze  of  militarism! 
Has  not  the  solemn  farce  of  seeing  Christian 
nations  build  ten  million  dollar  bulldogs 
in  the  remote  possibility  of  being  called 
upon  to  match  them  against  the  costly  bull- 
dogs of  their  neighbors,  unless,  perchance, 


229 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


these  expensive  creations  should,  before  that, 
have  been  relegated  to  the  scrap-heap  by 
some  new  device  —  has  not  that  solemn, 
ugly  farce  played  itself  out!  "The  welfare 
of  the  people  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  land." 
It  is  the  supreme  law  of  all  lands  and  any  one 
who  has  visited  Europe,  where  every  third 
peasant  carries  a  useless  and  burdensome 
soldier  on  his  back  as  he  goes  forth  to  his  toil, 
knows  that  this  modern  evil  of  militarism  is  a 
mighty  menace  to  the  welfare  of  any  people. 
The  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Ap- 
propriations in  our  Congress  last  winter 
called  the  attention  of  the  House  to  the  fact 
that,  in  pensions  and  in  preparations  for 
possible  war,  the  United  States  was  spend- 
ing more  money  than  any  other  nation  in 
the  world.  He  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  appropriations  for  military  and 
naval  affairs  for  the  coming  year  would 
exceed,  by  twentv-nine  millions  of  dollars, 
all  the  money  which  the  United  States  gov- 
ernment has  spent  from  the  beginning  of 
the  republic  up  to  the  present  hour  upon 
public  buildings.  He  spoke  also  of  the  fact 
that  this  nation,  which  we  like  to  think  of 
as  a  non-military  nation,  is  spending  at  the 


[230 


TOE    WAR    AGAINST    WAR 


present  time  more  than  two-thirds  of  the 
total  national  revenue  on  pensions  and  on 
preparations  for  war.  What  an  abnormal 
condition  for  a  republic  whose  splendid  history 
has  been  almost  entirely  a  history  of  peace! 

Would  that  our  country  might  take 
higher  ground  in  this  whole  matter !  Would 
that  there  might  go  out  from  us  a  splendid 
endorsement  of  the  principle  of  arbitration, 
a  strong  insistence  upon  the  method  of  inter- 
national litigation  before  such  tribunals  as 
have  been  outlined  at  the  Hague  conferences 
and  a  stinging  rebuke  to  the  policy  of  in- 
creasing these  deadly  and  burdensone  arma- 
ments! Would  that  our  land  might  show 
itself  a  leader  and  a  messiah  among  the 
nations  in  achieving  that  magnificent  ful- 
filment when  the  promised  Messiah,  the 
Prince  of  Peace,  shall  reign  in  the  affairs  of 
men. 

The  claim  is  made  that  risk  is  involved  in 
refusing  to  maintain  these  costly  armaments 
which  are  sapping  the  life-blood  of  the  lead- 
ing nations  of  Europe.  Risk  is  involved, 
undoubtedly,  but  if  we  want  peace,  why  not 
take  that  risk  in  showing  the  nations  that 
such  is  our  desire  .^^     It  would  be  a  magnifi- 


es 1 


THE    CAP    AND    GOWN 


cent  form  of  moral  venture.  Risk  is  in- 
volved —  so  be  it !  A  far  greater  risk  to 
the  general  welfare  and  to  the  perpetuity 
of  our  institutions  is  involved  in  the  opposite 
course.  Why  should  not  we,  as  a  land  of 
high  principles  and  shining  ideals,  make  the 
moral  venture  of  staking  our  future  upon  a 
splendid  obedience  to  the  appeal  of  the 
great  Messiah?  Beat  the  swords  into  plow- 
shares! Beat  the  spears  into  pruning-hooks ! 
In  peaceful,  joyous  industry  let  not  this 
nation  learn  war  any  more!  Let  it  place  its 
reliance  upon  courts  of  arbitration  for  the 
settlement  of  international  disputes,  and  the 
blessing  of  Almighty  God,  which  maketh 
rich  and  bringeth  no  sorrow  therewith,  shall 
be  ours! 

"  If  drunk  with  sight  of  power  we  loose 

Wild  tongues  that  have  not  Thee  in  awe. 

Such  boastings  as  the  Gentiles  use 

Or  lesser  breeds  without  the  law. 

Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet. 

Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget! 

"The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies; 

The  captains  and  the  kings  depart; 
Still  stands  thine  ancient  sacrifice 

An  humble  and  a  contrite  heart. 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget." 

[  232  1 


THE    W  A  H    AGAINST    W  A  R  " 


O  thou  land  whose  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence was  made  in  Philadelphia,  the 
city  of  brotherly  love!  O  thou  land  of 
Washington,  who  prayed  in  his  farewell 
address  that  we  might  be  kept  from  the 
scourge  of  war!  O  thou  land  of  General 
Grant,  who  declared,  "Though  I  have  been 
trained  as  a  soldier  and  have  participated 
in  many  battles,  there  never  was  a  time,  in 
my  opinion,  when  some  way  could  not  have 
been  found  to  prevent  the  drawing  of  the 
sword."  O  thou  land  of  Lincoln,  who 
pleaded  in  his  second  inaugural,  "With  mal- 
ice toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with 
firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see 
the  right,  let  us  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds 
and  strive  to  achieve  and  cherish  among 
ourselves  and  with  all  nations  a  just  and  last- 
ing peace."  O  thou  land  that  w^e  love, 
enter  thou  afresh  into  a  nobler  rivalry  with 
all  the  nations  of  earth  in  the  cultivation 
of  good-will,  in  the  reduction  of  burdensome 
armament  and  in  the  maintenance  of  those 
policies  which  make  for  the  enduring  welfare 
of  the  race! 


233 


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